Invasive Species

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) are celebrating 5 successful years of partnership, which has lead to some great resources. You can access quadruple the number of invasive species than when the partnership began. A mirror Web site now makes for fast, easy, worldwide access to information on the invasive species problem. New tools let you search for and share invasive species information globally. And the Global Invasive Species Database is now easier to use.

Natural ecosystems are under siege by many harmful species of plants, animals and diseases. The impacts of invasive species are second only to habitat destruction as a cause of global biodiversity loss. The current environmental, economic, and health costs of invasive species could exceed $US138 billion per year, more than all other natural disasters combined. Notorious examples include:

• West Nile virus and purple loosestrife (Northeast)
• Kudzu, water hyacinth, nutria, and fire ants (Southeast)
• Zebra mussels and leafy spurge, (Midwest)
• Salt cedar, Russian olive, and Africanized honeybees (Southwest)
• Yellow star thistle, Asian clams, and sudden oak death (California)
• Cheatgrass, knapweeds and thistles (Great Basin)
• Whirling disease of salmonids (Northwest)
• Hundreds of species like Coqui frogs (Hawaii)
• The brown tree snake (Guam)

Hundreds of new species from other countries are introduced intentionally or accidentally into the US each year. And many species originating in the US have been introduced into other parts of the world. This threat intensifies the need for scientists, managers, and the many stakeholders to rally together to build better systems for invasion prevention, improve early detection of invaders, track established invaders, and coordinate containment, control, and effective habitat restoration.