Monday, December 19, 2022

fighting invaders

The last feature of the year is about invasive species, one of the key causes of biodiversity loss, which has been the focus of the COP15 summit at Montreal that ends this week.

We, Homo sapiens, are of course the most invasive species of all, and most of the others have invaded in our footsteps. They often travel as stowaways, such as rodents on ships, but in some cases have also been spread intentionally by people wanting to "enrich" their local flora or fauna.

For the feature I have rounded up some examples of such accidental or stupid invasions, along with new ways developed to fight back against harmful invasions.

How to stop species invasions

Current Biology Volume 32, Issue 24, 19. December 2022, Pages R1325-R1328

FREE access to full text and PDF download

NB: All of the 2022 features are now the open archives, and listed in this thread on Mastodon.

The red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) native to the Bering Sea and Alaska was introduced to the Barents Sea by the Soviet Union and is now spreading from there into the North Sea. (Photo: David Marks/Pixabay.)

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