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Recognizing that invasive species are potentially major
catalysts for environmental change, researchers from the University of
Wisconsin—Madison are relooking at how we account for invasive species populations.
Instead of researching the habits of the invasive species, researchers Gretchen
Hansen and Jake Vander Zanden are considering abundance distributions of an invasive
species. They hypothesize that measuring abundance in an area is a more helpful
determinate for defining the most optimal methods of prevention, containment,
control and eradication.
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Jake Vander Zanden, professor at University of
Wisconsin-Madison leading the research says, “Invasive species are often
thought of as species that take over wherever they get in. But, in our
experience studying lakes and rivers, in most places they weren’t all that
abundant. It was only in a few places where they got out of hand.” But
those happen to be the same places where the natives would do well too, perhaps
explaining why invasive species attract so much attention.
This indicated that invasive species are acting much like
their native counterparts and following the ecological patterns of distribution
and growth. Their study has used “abundance data from over 24,000 populations
of 17 invasive and 104 native aquatic species to test whether invasive species
differ from native counterparts in statistical patterns of abundance across
multiple sites.”
Vander Zanden addresses the importance of this difference in
understanding. His point is that thus far, our attention has been placed almost
exclusively on the understanding of the invasive species and its makeup. We
have placed less attention on its preferred habitat and what attributes make a
habitat favorable for this species. If we were to place emphasis on the site
characteristics where invasive species flourish instead then we would be more able
to target our time and resources most effectively. Identifying characteristic
details of an invasive species hotspot provides another consideration for the prevention
and control of an invasive species before an invasion takes hold instead of
containing and eradicating after the abundance has taken hold. By placing focus in this way on specific sites
we are more apt to contain a problem. Vander Zanden asserts that this method
would be much more likely to provide us with maximum benefit for limited
resources.
Hansen goes on to say, “Of all the species we know to
be invasive, our study shows that they are likely to reach high densities in
only a few places — predicting which ones would help focus control efforts on
the sites where they’re likely to become highly abundant, letting us spend our
limited resources in ways that will provide the maximum benefit.”
Read more at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
Zebra Mussel image by Amy Benson via U. S.
Geological Survey.
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