PROGRAM INTRODUCTION

Bullfrogs, originally introduced into the Pacific Northwest to produce frog's legs for market, aggressively depress populations of native frogs and salamanders.

More than 6,500 non-indigenous species are now established in the United States, causing huge economic losses and disrupting valued American ecosystems. Biological invaders pose risks to native species, human and wildlife health, and the productivity of agricultural food supplies. Losses caused by just 79 biological invaders were conservatively estimated in 1993 by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment to cost more than $97 billion and increasing. Bio-security-protection from dangerous biological introductions-is important to Americans.

The vast mosaic of western U.S. habitats is welcoming to potential biological newcomers. These habitats include rivers and their reservoirs, estuaries, wetlands, and the entire range of upland terrestrial habitats. The invaders include fish, invertebrates, microbial pathogens, and plants, among others-representing essentially all taxonomic categories.

American shad, an anadromous transplant to the Columbia River from the east coast in the late 1800s, now have annual spawning runs of some three million fish. Juvenile shad, which migrate downriver in late summer, may alter the zooplankton community and supplement the diet of resident predators. Shown are pre-spawning adults migrating upstream at Bonneville Dam.

The impacts to natural resources can be monumental. For example, more than 230 non-native species have colonized San Francisco Bay, completely altering estuarine food chains and ecosystem processes. Red tide plankton and human cholera pathogens have been identified in ballast water discharges. Novel diseases from outside North America, such as whirling disease in trout, have made a devastating appearance in the U.S. In the Columbia River, dams have created a series of reservoirs that welcome invasive aquatic plants and non-native fish that can alter food webs and eat juvenile salmon. Indeed, non-indigenous species are often among the most critical problems facing western threatened and endangered species.

Congress has underlined the national importance of the issue in the language of the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act (NAISA), being deliberated by the 108th Congress. Invasive species research has recently become a high priority for Department of Interior and other agencies and organizations with natural resource management responsibility. Therefore, research at WFRC is being developed to help managers in the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and numerous tribes, states, and private institutions. Currently the WFRC program is small, but we have ambitious goals. By providing reliable science in concert with other studies nationwide under the bureau's Invasive Species Program. WFRC will help to:

• Predict and assess risks: provide USGS partners with tools and models to anticipate problems; help to better define and manage problems once they occur
• Prevent and control invasions: develop strategies and methods to shortstop initial introductions and cost-effectively control invaders once established, based on research to determine how and why invaders are successful
• Focus on coastal/marine environments: determine the vulnerability of estuarine communities and food webs; identify high risk foreign species in advance; determine threats to estuarine ecology
• Reduce risk from ballast water introductions: research and develop effective ballast water treatment methods; assess species transport risks (e.g. by season; ecosystems, and native species complexes)
• Reduce risk from microbial pathogens and parasites: develop genetic tools to identify/diagnose novel fish pathogens; conduct biocontainment laboratory disease challenges for novel or incipient pathogens to determine virulence and assess risk of epizootics; develop treatment tools and methods.

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