Invasive species are devastating to the environment
Some people refer to a thing known as the ‘Rule of 10s’ this
states that if 100 organisms are introduced to a new area 10 of them will be
capable of surviving without input and of those 10 only 1 is going to cause a truly significant
problem. So when you look at the numbers like that you have to ask yourself how
likely invasive species are going to cause a problem. Well the problem is with better
connection between everywhere in the world, thousands of invasive species have
been able to move into new areas where they are all having very significant
effects.
Now it’s hard to talk about invasive species in a general
sense as every situation is different and is being dealt with differently.
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A further example of an invasive species which has covered
an entire country and has been mentioned before on this blog, is the mosquito fish Gambusia holbrooki, which was
introduced into Australia in the 1920s, in the hope that it would control
mosquito larvae. It is now present in every state except the Northern Territories
and vastly affects the food web dynamics preying on aquatic invertebrates and breeding
till it is the most dominant species in the pond. It also has an adverse effect
on amphibians due to the fact that it attacks tadpoles and fin nips them which
reduces the area of their tail and so prevents them from escaping from
predators. There is not much to be done about this invasion as if a pond is
drained gambusia always returns due to its resilience to droughts.
New Zealand as a country has been hit extremely hard by
invasive species, owing to the fact that it has been separated from other land
masses for so long means that in evolutionary terms many of the niches are
occupied by organisms which are not adapted to predators and competition. This is
issues being faced by many other isolated Islands such as Hawaii which distance
for large land masses has made their ecology completely unique and so unable to
cope with invasive species.
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As you can see invasive species are a serious issue and one
which costs nearly every country billions of pounds a year through either loss
of economic income or attempts in controlling and eradicating the invading
species. In most cases however the damage has been done with many native
species having become extinct due to the introduction of a new organism.
However there is always more work to be done on this front
as with each new invasive species new threats are created and new diseases
introduced resulting in different native species being put under pressure.
You can do something though, something as simple as thinking
about what you are planting in your garden and whether its spread will be detrimental
to your local environment will help. As well as this there are groups which are
easily found in the internet local to you which need the help of volunteers to remove
invasive species, so if you have some spare time that would be a good option to
look into.
Thanks for reading
Side note – I only just brushed the surface of the effect
that each of the invasive species mentioned in this post has and if you are interested
there are countless studies being conducted, some of which have been running
for many years to show the full extent of the introduction of an invasive
species.
Check out these videos
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