Invasive Species Issues
Invasive species include nonnative, alien, or exotic plant pests
(such as insects, weeds, or pathogens); animal and zoonotic disease
pathogens, which can transmit diseases between animals and humans;
or other organisms that can cause economic or environmental harm to
U.S. agriculture, range, and forest systems.
USDA and other Federal and State Government agencies have
programs to prevent entry and to detect, monitor, and manage
invasive species that enter the United States or spread to new
regions. See
Integrating Invasive Species Prevention And Control Policies
for a discussion of how these programs can interact.
ERS conducts and funds research to support these efforts through
the Program of Research on the Economics of Invasive Species
Management (PREISM). See the report,
Program of Research on the Economics of Invasive Species Management
Fiscal 2003-2011 Activities, for a listing of funded
research.
Several factors bolster the need to further these efforts:
- Increased vulnerabilities from the changing structure of
livestock and crop production in the United States
- Increased likelihood of invasive species survival during
transit due to faster modes of transport
- Growing evidence of the adverse impacts of species on native
ecosystems
- Increased restrictions on traditional chemical control
options.
We've recently redesigned our website. You may be interested in
browsing the material that was available in the Invasive Species Management briefing room,
which is available in our archive.