Page 307 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

TABLE 11.2 Invasive Species
306 This table shows just a few of the many thousands of invasive species.
M11_WITH7428_05_SE_C11.indd
European gypsy moth Asian long-horned beetle
(Lymantria dispar) (Anoplophora glabripennis)
Introduced to Massachusetts in Since the 1990s, has
the hope it could produce silk. repeatedly arrived in North
The moth failed to do so, and America in imported lumber.
instead spread across the These insects burrow into
eastern United States, where its wood and can kill the majority
outbreaks defoliate trees over of trees in an area. Chicago,
large regions every few years. Seattle, Toronto, New York,
and other cities have cleared
thousands of trees to
eradicate these invaders.
European starling Emerald ash borer
(Sturnus vulgaris) (Agrilus planipennis)
Introduced to New York City in Discovered in Michigan in
the 1800s by Shakespeare 2002, this wood-boring insect
devotees intent on bringing reached 12 U.S. states and
every bird mentioned in Canada by 2010, killing
Shakespeare’s plays to America. millions of ash trees in the
Outcompeting native birds for upper Midwest. Billions of
nest holes, within 75 years dollars will be spent in trying
starlings became one of North to control its spread.
America’s most abundant birds.
Cheatgrass Sudden oak death
(Bromus tectorum) (Phytophthora ramorum)
After introduction to Washington This disease has killed over 1
state in the 1890s, cheatgrass million oak trees in California
spread across the western since the 1990s. The pathogen
United States. It crowds out (a water mold) was likely
other plants, uses up the soil’s introduced via infected nursery
nitrogen, and burns readily. Fire plants. Scientists are
kills many native plants, but not concerned about damage to
cheatgrass, which grows back eastern U.S. forests if it
stronger without competition. spreads to oaks there.
Brown tree snake Nile perch
(Boiga irregularis) (Lates niloticus)
Nearly every native forest bird A large fish from the Nile River.
on the South Pacific island of Introduced to Lake Victoria in
Guam has disappeared, eaten the 1950s, it proceeded to eat
by these snakes, which arrived its way through hundreds of
from Asia as stowaways on species of native cichlid fish,
ships and planes after World driving a number of them
War II. Guam’s birds had not extinct (p. 304). People value
evolved with snakes, and had the perch as food, but it has
no defenses against them. radically altered the lake’s
ecology.
Kudzu Polynesian rat
(Pueraria montana) (Rattus exulans)
A Japanese vine that can grow One of several rat species
30 m (100 ft) in a single season, that have followed human
the U.S. Soil Conservation migrations across the world.
Service introduced kudzu in the Polynesians transported this
1930s to help control erosion. rat to islands across the
Kudzu took over forests, fields, Pacific, including Easter
and roadsides throughout the Island (pp. 24–25). On each
southeastern United States. island it caused ecological
havoc, and has driven extinct
birds, plants, and mammals.
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