Invasive species cause billions of dollars in damage across the US every year. Hikers and backpackers can take simple steps to avoid spreading seeds and making the problem worse.
Bradford pear trees in bloom along a driveway in Sussex County, Del.
Lee Cannon/Flickr
Conservation practitioners and policymakers must organize and prioritize the management of habitats around whether species are more beneficial or harmful to biodiversity.
The small and unassuming Steatoda nobilis.
JorgeOrtiz_1976/Shutterstock
The pet trade has spurred a wave of bird imports, leading to escapes or even deliberate releases of exotic species into the wild. New research reveals the threat they now pose to native birds.
Carp can make riverbeds look like golf balls – denuded and dimpled, devoid of any habitat. Releasing carp herpes virus is a controversial proposition, so let’s weigh up the risks and benefits.
Lizards that do or do not share space with invasive fire ants will react differently to this scenario.
Tracy Langkilde and Travis Robbins
The ways eastern fence lizards have changed in response to red imported fire ants demonstrate how species can adapt to survive the presence of invasive predators.
Invasive rats can fundamentally alter the functioning of surrounding marine ecosystems.
Bluerain/Shutterstock
Rats are disrupting the flow of nutrients towards the sea on many tropical islands – this has consequences for fish behaviour and the wider ecosystem.
While the European spongy moth outbreak reached a dramatic peak in parts of Canada last year, these caterpillars have completely vanished this year.
(Washington State Department of Agriculture/flickr)
38 mammals have been driven to extinction since colonisation, and many more are close to joining them. We have the solutions at hand, but warnings continue to be met with mediocre responses.
Ballast water discharge from transoceanic ships introduces invasive species to the Great Lakes.
(Shutterstock)
Indonesia’s foot-and-mouth outbreak shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s been decades in the making – just the latest consequence of biosecurity shortcomings in the region.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University