In a globalized world, humans are increasingly moving species beyond their native ranges, both accidentally and deliberately. Many of these species become established and spread in their new habitat, becoming harmful invasive species. Thus, mankind is unwittingly contributing to what is becoming one of the great dilemmas of our age, with ever-increasing negative ecological, economic, and health-related effects. Zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha); red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta); kudzu (Pueraria lobata); and brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) are among the more dramatic of the countless examples of these harmful invaders.

Meeting the Challenge With Science

In response to the invasive species challenge, research has blossomed worldwide over the past 25 years. Invasion scientists have asked the following basic questions since the mid-1980s:

• What species will invade?
• What ecosystems will be invaded? 
• How can we better manage invasions?
  

Currently scientists produce more than 3,500 invasion-biology journal articles each year.  But some say these articles contribute much more to understanding the enormous scale of the problem than to delivering vigorous solutions. One of the better emerging generalizations:  If a species is invasive in one part of the world, it is likely to be invasive sooner or later in similar environments elsewhere.

But with thousands of invasive species, how can we keep track of what is potentially invasive and under what environmental circumstances? “The invasive species phenomenon can be viewed as a fundamental component of human-caused global change that poses a huge challenge to human ingenuity,” said Mark Fornwall, manager of the National Biological Information Infrastructure, Pacific Basin Information Node. "It is also a phenomenon that may lend itself well to solutions aided by an important human invention – the Internet."

NBII: E-Gateway to Biological-Resource Data and Information

NBII (http://www.nbii.gov) has attempted to contribute robust solutions to the problem of invasive species at regional, national and international levels. A broad, collaborative program coordinated through the U.S. Geological Survey, NBII provides increased access to Web-based data and information on the nation's biological resources. It also promotes the sharing of this data across regional and national borders.  The program consists of interconnected nodes (entry points) that allow users to access online scientific research that focuses on a specific geographical region or theme.

Regional nodes, such as PBIN (http://pbin.nbii.gov/), have a geographic orientation and represent a regional approach to local data issues, data collectors, and owners. Within PBIN, for example, users can access data and computer applications related to Pacific Island biodiversity. Alternatively, thematic nodes, such as the NBII Invasive Species Information Node (http://invasivespecies.nbii.gov/), focus on a particular biological issue. "ISIN is an information portal for invasive plants, animals, and pathogens, and provides access to diverse resources for invasive species early detection, rapid assessment, and rapid response," said Annie Simpson, ISIN manager. "PBIN and ISIN are taking the lead in grappling with major invasive species information management issues."

PBIN: Sharing Front-Line Information With the World

PBIN’s location, Hawaii, places it in the thick of things with invasions and efforts toward solutions. "Oceanic island ecosystems, such as those found in Hawaii, have long been known to be notoriously susceptible to invasions, largely due to their highly diverse but benign environments," Fornwall said. "The Hawaiian Islands provide an ideal laboratory for addressing harmful invasive species problems because invasive species are the state's dominant biological resource issue today."

PBIN has been heavily involved with developing tools to make enormous repositories of information accessible on the Internet in a user-friendly format.  Two examples of its work on online information systems related to invasive species follow:

• The Global Compendium of Weeds (http://www.hear.org/gcw/), produced by Rod Randall, Agriculture Department of Western Australia.
• The Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (http://www.hear.org/Pier/), produced by Jim Space with the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service.
  

PBIN is currently providing assistance with developing a database to allow the sharing of weed-risk assessment information across geographies. A recent Nature Conservancy and University of Florida study (http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/temp/gordonetal2008.pdf.), confirmed this assessment tool functions similarly across islands and continents in tropical and temperate climates. It concluded the tool had undergone sufficient testing and recommended countries adopt it as an initial screen for the plant species they plan to introduce to new geographies.

A paper in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation” (Dawson et al., 2008), illustrates how the science and art of managing invasions at local to national to global levels is progressing. Scientists from the United Kingdom, Tanzania, and New Zealand used Internet resources to determine how knowledge of invasion elsewhere can be useful in forecasting risk. They used databases in which NBII, through both ISIN and PBIN, helped develop, including the Invasive Species Specialist Group (http://www.issg.org/); GCW; and PIER.

ISIN: Key Player at a National and a Global Level

ISIN (http://invasivespecies.nbii.gov) has formed diverse partnerships to achieve its mission to manage and disseminate reliable invasive-species information.

ISIN hosts the National Framework for Invasive Species Early Detection, Rapid Assessment, and Rapid Response. EDRR is a product of an interagency working group coordinated through the National Invasive Species Council and is available at http://edrr.nbii.gov. "Consider this resource as a library of reliable EDRR resources from across the federal government and elsewhere, with the information grouped into the areas of identification, reporting, expert verification, occurrences/distributions, rapid assessment, planning, and rapid response," said Elizabeth Sellers, NBII assistant invasive species information coordinator.

Global ISIN partners include the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (http://www.iucn.org/) and the Global Invasive Species Information Network (http://www.gisinetwork.org). As part of more than 5-year partnership with IUCN’s Species Survival Commission’s Invasive Species Specialist Group, ISIN mirrors the Global Invasive Species Database at http://www.invasivespecies.net/database. This database contains more than 500 invasive species profiles and grows by 100 profiles yearly. ISIN also provides key players to GISIN, which is developing a Web-based system to share invasive-species information across diverse databases on the Internet.

Making the Connection

With sound resource management and the help of an informed public, our nation and others can effectively address the global problem of invasive species — at least theoretically. That is where NBII shines.  By connecting its users to scientifically reliable data and information on invasive species, NBII is giving them tools they need to take action.