Under The Radar: The Dangers Of Invasive Species

Under the Radar: The Dangers of Invasive Species Imagine a world where life was destroyed by selfish human mistakes. The imaginary may become reality if people don't become more aware of their effect on their surroundings. The first thing a business company considers before shipping their products is most likely not the possibility of spreading a dangerous disease to a foreign country, but it is a real possibility. Invasive species can cause damage behind the scenes that overtime, can turn into a major problem. Non-native species are not native for a reason; they aren’t supposed to be there in the first place. To avoid potential disaster, a business or government agency would need to consider the fact that invasive species can harm the environment,

Either accidentally or on purpose, organisms for one country can be transported to a new environment which may not seem important at first, but can cause many problems down the road. Endangered species are often put in further danger of extinction with the introduction of invasive species and this is sometimes due to situations like a company shipping products and indirectly releasing a non-native species into an unstable ecosystem. Island ecosystems are especially vulnerable and because islands usually encompass a small land area, they are composed of a single ecosystem which is the reason for the unstablility. Endangered species are more likely to become extinct with the introduction of an invasive species, which not only can kill off an entire species, but could cause harm to other natives as well (Little). All organisms are interconnected in an ecosystem and if one part of that system were to become eliminated or unbalanced, there could be extreme effects to all of the other organisms. In fact, 95% of all sea bird species are actually extinct because of situations like this (Little). So many species could be saved in the future if people would be more aware of the consequences of their

For instance, an increase in endangered species can lead to a decrease in biodiversity, which allows the invasive species to take over the environment with ease. Letting an invasive species population get out of control can lead to the destruction of an ecosystem and in almost no time at all, an ecosytem can be overrun with an invasive species because they don’t have many predators in this new environment to control their populations. With a new environment to adapt to, invasive species consume a wide variety of organisms because they are all available to them. A well known law in ecology, Competitive Exclusion, states that no two species can occupy the same lifestyle and resources. This means that invasive species out compete natives for their resources because they have few limiting factors on their population, which is why the native species are sometimes killed off. On one occasion, people tried to import the cane toad to Australia as pest control, but the toads killed everything in sight and their populations spread. Insects and bird eggs are in danger, even many potential predators were killed because the toads are poisonous to consume (Spotts). Countless defenseless animals are in danger because of instances like this and should be considered when making desicions to transport