Cold Fish

The San Antonio Express-News is reporting that recent Texas cold snaps have not been good for the state's invasive fish. Thousands of tilapia and plecostomus catfish (but note confusion as to which species this is) have been found floating dead in portions of the San Antonio River since December of last year. The culprit is thought to be weather patterns that led to several stretches of temperatures in the 30's (F). The non-native tilapia and plecos, which are from Africa and South America, respectively, do not do well in cold water.

Vine, No Thank You!

The Auckland Regional Council in New Zealand is asking property owners to keep an eye out for the invasive moth plant (Araujia sericifera). The South American vine should be in flower across New Zealand right now, making it easier to spot. It doesn't sound like a friendly plant: the sap can cause allergic reactions, the seeds and fruit are poisonous, and the flowers trap moths, butterflies and bees. Anyone who finds a moth plant on their property is encouraged to dig it out (with gloves on, of course) or spray it with herbicide, and landowners in certain parts of the coutry are actually legally required to do so.

Worm Front

From deep in the ISW mailbag...Mike H. sent in a link to this Boston Globe article about non-native earthworms. The topic has certainly been reported before on the ISW, but the Globe adds a nice New England flavor to it. The article notes that there could be as many as 15 different introduced earthworm species in the region, though typically no more than five of them are found in any one forest.

The Age Of Aquaria

From the looks of these USGS Non-indigenous Aquatic Species Alerts (new reports of discoveries from May 2006 and earlier), Puerto must be turning into one giant fish tank:

• Rosy barbs (Puntius conchonius) [so common, they are now being used as bait fish]
• Congo tetras (Phenacogrammus interruptus)
• Tiger barbs (Puntius tetrazona)
• Red devils (Cichlasoma labiatum)
• midas cichlids (Cichlasoma citrinellum) [also here]
• Rio Grande cichlid (Cichlasoma cyanoguttatum)
• Convict cichlids (Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum)
• Sailfin catfish (Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus)

For more information, check out this page from MongaBay - it's a list of known fish species in Puerto Rico, marked as native or non-native, with links to their FishBase species pages. Fifty-six percent introduced (30 species) - very impressive!

Weekend Blog Blogging

The past week in invasive species blogging:

• The annotated budak has got something stuck in his craw...fish. Click here to read about the invasion of Cherax quadricarinatus in Singapore.
• Secret Tenerife blogs about the most recent efforts to manage invasive plants at Teno Rural Park, on the island of Tenerife*, part of the Canary Islands.
• Invasive wolves? In Wyoming? Sounds odd. Get more information about non-native wolves influencing elk behavior at Ron's Journal.
• The Environmental Almanac has an interesting editorial about invasive plants being used as biofuel crops.

* Link source: Encyclopedia Britannica, which provides free web access to the ISW.

Square Pegs

This post has been selected to appear in the Open Laboratory 2007 anthology of science blogs!

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Since being gifted with a copy of the book Mind Performance Hacks this past holiday, I have become fascinated by all the different memory techniques that have been developed. One of the first hacks is to create a system of numerical "pegs" to hang memories on, and after playing various games memorizing grocery lists and cars on the highway, I decided to put this new hack to good use.

Below is my set of 10 Invasive Species Pegs, along with ten important facts about invasive species that I am now guaranteed to never forget. They're not in order of importance, just in the order that I use to remember them. Mousing over the pegs will display my brain's (sometimes odd) associations with each number.

1	A Dividing Line - There are divisions that exist between various disciplines that prevent biologists from working together to tackle invasive species issues: terrestrial|aquatic, freshwater|marine, plant|animal. Most of this has its root in pre-existing organizations that were created to focus on weeds, or aquatic ecosystems, or pathogens and disease. Many of these organizations have found that invasive species now fall under their jurisdiction, and while many have taken steps to partner with each other, there is a lot of room for improvement.
2	Feathers and Fluff - The attention an invasive species gets is frequently determined by how charismatic it is, whether that attention is positive (mute swan) or negative (snakeheads). Anyone want to start a program to adopt snakehead fish? Or spongy moth caterpillars? Anyone?
3	DNA Matters - Invasion isn't just about one species displacing others - it can occur at the subspecies level. The genetic material of invasive organisms can threaten native species by leading to hybridization (between natives and non-natives, or even between two non-natives, leading to more aggressive invaders) and loss of genetic variation (when invaders attract mates or pollinators away from native species).
4	The Holy Grail - Scientists wish they could predict, with certainty, exactly which species will be invasive, based on biological characters...but they still cannot. Tropical species can invade temperate zones, proliferous breeders don't necessarily succeed while those with low reproductive output sometimes do, and we're still not sure what role biodiversity levels in the native habitat play in the whole mess. What we do know: it is a very, very complex problem to try to tease apart.
5	Snakes on a Plane - While people care very much about political borders, invasive species, in general, do not. Take a look at the invasive species lists for any state, province or country and compare them to one of their neighbors. First, you'll likely find that you can't match them up completely because one will be lacking mammals, the other lacking pathogens, etc. Second, the species on the list for a particular type of organism will likely differ so much that the mind *boggles.* Take a look at this study I did back in 2003 just for invasive plants in the New England states. Keeping in mind that the data is three years out of date (the Massachusetts and Connecticut lists are now much larger), note the huge differences between these relatively tiny, adjacent land masses [map]. Now think about the fact that New York and Vermont each manage Lake Champlain differently to control the invasive sea lampreys [insert your favorite expletive here].
6	The vine wants what the vine wants - Some native species exhibit characteristics that are considered invasive. The general public often gets confused by this separation between native and non-native when something is simply a nuisance (You're going to keep the poison ivy and kill that pretty purple loosestrife - wha?). But more importantly, invasive species ecology does not need to stand alone as a science, ecological concepts like succession, r- and k-selected species still have meaning regardless of the origin of a species.
7	All Bottled Up - Endangered species are often at risk due to genetic bottlenecks, where a massive species loss leads to a lack of genetic variation which theoretically puts the species in danger of extinction. But non-native species introduced to new habitats typically experience these same bottlenecks (very few individuals, low population numbers, little genetic variation)...yet can become invasive. Sometimes those bottlenecks even lead to evolution of novel characters that are thought to make the species better invaders. Interesting...and I plan on looking into this more during my class this semester.
8	What is “Natural”? - Some people say "Let nature take its course" with regard to invasive species. Yet humans are constantly influencing nature in a variety of direct and indirect ways. We dig, we plant, we pollute, we change weather patterns, we alter hydrologic paths. Why is it that we cannot also try to protect native species at the same that we are harming them?
9	Multiplicity - Most invasive species have several vectors of introduction. This is one of the few good predictors of invasive success. Also, the ways something gets introduced and the ways it later gets spread around are often entirely different. Though most species are linked with intentional introductions, unintentional spread via natural pathways (wind, flood, migration) makes controlling invaders much more complicated. Which is why prevention is such an attractive concept...
10	Time is Short - We don't have enough of it to definitively answer what the impact of every introduced species will be. There aren't enough grad students to do all those studies and there definitely isn't enough funding. That is the main reason why prevention is such an attractive proposition, even if prevention is a brush that paints with broad strokes.

Pegs 1, 2, 3, 6 and 10 are my photos, the rest are from photographers who generously shared their photos under a Creative Commons license. Thanks to LeoL30 (4), Geordie Torr (5), zen (7), D. Bjorn (8) and Salim Virji (9)!

If I Could Buy Plants In A Bottle...

...The first thing that I'd want to do
is spend every day asking what plants they were
and if they're invasive, I'd bid them adieu!

Via boingboing, news of a store called dirty microbe selling a "Tokyo Micro Garden," which is a tiny jar with a tiny plant growing in a nutrient goo. Its meant to hang off your cellphone strap and it's darn cute. Part of me wants to buy one, I think it's that same part of me that thought it would be fun to have one of those hermit crab necklaces...the ones with live hermit crabs in them.

But seriously folks, there's this thing called "Corporate Responsibility" and the world needs more of it. It means you don't get to stick unknown plants in a jar and sell them all over the world without thinking about what species they are and whether they could potentially be invasive, and whether you might be breaking the laws of all those countries you're offering to ship to if you sell said plants there. If those plants aren't invasive, then you should be informing us, the consumer, that you've gone and checked into it.

I've emailed dirty microbe to ask them if they know what species of plants those "blue leafy" and "pink leafy" ones are, so I can check what their origin is and whether they are invasive (in the US or anyplace else). If I find out anything more, I'll post it here.

Update: Whew! I decided to do some sleuthing and I just found this page from a Japanese company that seems to be selling the exact same product. The "leafy" plants appear to be...Orchids! Specifically, Cattleya and Oncidium. So these are likely just tissue cultured orchids (and cacti too). I feel better now. I still think dirty microbe needs to put that info on their website though.

Update 2: dirty microbe has the fastest, nicest customer support staff of any webstore I've ever contacted <3 <3 <3. They assured me the plants-in-a-jar were approved for import and they promised to look into exactly what plants they were. I can see other parts of their website where they have specifically responded to customer comments and that is promising. This is a good thing - we all benefit from being better informed about the things we "consume."

Update 3: Uh oh. I was perusing dirty microbe's ultra-cute site and I just found these micro-seaweed cellphone strap attachments - algae from Japan in an unsealed bottle. There are other online stores selling these little cellphone charms too. Now I am worried again. The algae listed are: Wolveryponica, Wolverineza, Wolveritusa, and Valornia. I think Valornia=Valonia, which is sometimes listed as a nuisance species...but who knows what species this is. The others seem to exist only as trade names, I will try to figure out what their scientific names are...

Update 4: dirtymicrobe.com has been really great about this. Customer Support let me know that they are very concerned about the possible negative environmental impacts of this and they have pulled the items from their catalog pending more information (they were out of stock and expected to arrive this April). Meanwhile, if you think you might know the identity of any of those algae, drop me an email (use the Suggest a Post link in the top left corner of this page).

Update 5: The strapya-world website has more information along with better close-up photos of the algae, which they say are cultivated in deep sea water (water from more than 200 meters (650ft) below sea level).