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For more than 30 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with Vermont and New York to control this invasive species and protect Lake Champlain. Fortunately, sea lamprey woundings are now at an all-time low.

The U.S. Geological Survey provides natural-resource managers with scientific information, risk assessment, and tools that can help to improve surveillance, prevention, and control strategies for managing invasive carp.
Fact Sheet 2022–3012

The plot could have come from Hollywood — an insidious alien invader threatens to overrun the land, but intrepid scientists discover a secret weapon in the far-off, exotic land of Nepal and bring the pestilence to heel. But this is not fiction; it's true. The air potato plant (Dioscorea bulbifera) is an exotic vine from Asia that was introduced to Florida about 115 years ago to make medicine. After escaping from the lab, it multiplied and smothered native plant communities in all of Florida's 67 counties. It spread beyond to large swaths of land in the southeastern United States. All attempts to manage the air potato – mechanical, chemical, or physically gathering the bulbils — were unsuccessful; they were either too labor intensive and costly or caused collateral damage to native and endangered species. According to Min Rayamajhi, a plant pathologist at the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) Invasive Plant Research Laboratory (IPRL) in Fort Lauderdale, FL, the vines return every season, repeating the growth cycle and expanding the invasion at a rate of about 6 inches per day. Rayamajhi and retired ARS scientist Bob Pemberton traveled to Nepal and accidentally discovered the air potato beetle.

Biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey are racing the clock to pull four species of native Hawaiian Honeycreeper forest birds back from the brink of extinction. Factors such as habitat loss, invasive species, and non-native predators have been fueling the birds' decline for centuries. However, introduced diseases, particularly avian malaria spread through mosquitos, which are not native to the Hawaiian Islands, coupled with climate change, are the greatest threat facing Hawaiian forest birds today. 

"As the climate warms and more mosquitoes move into the once malaria-free regions of the mountains, healthy birds are running out of places to escape the cycle of infection," said Eben Paxton, a research ecologist with the USGS Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center (PIERC) in Hawai'i. Now, PIERC biologists are working with a range of partners, including other Interior Department bureaus and the Birds Not Mosquitos Coalition, to intercept the disease cycle using a novel conservation tool.

Scientists have published a series of recommendations to enable communities and managers to minimise the impact of lionfish in the Mediterranean Sea. The invasive species was first noticed off the coast of the Lebanon in 2012, with sightings since recorded as far west as Sicily, and north into the Adriatic Sea off Croatia. More entered in 2015 due to the enlargement and deepening of the Suez Canal, with their spread unimpeded due to a lack of common predators. Researchers in the UK and Cyprus have said increasing lionfish densities – combined with the species' generalist diet and consumption of ecologically and socio-economically important fish – has the potential to result in further disruption of an already stressed marine environment. They have now published a Guide to Lionfish Management in the Mediterranean [PDF, 8.0 MB], which features a series of recommendations through which they hope lionfish populations can be managed.

A map identifying the areas suitable for establishment of the spotted lanternfly (SLF) in the United States and other countries has been published in the Journal of Economic Entomology by Agricultural Research Service scientists. The SLF, originally from China, has spread to Korea and Japan, and has been found most recently in the United States in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Delaware. These insects are pests of many agricultural crops including almonds, apples, blueberries, cherries, peaches, grapes and hops as well as hardwoods such as oak, walnut and poplar, among others. USDA and State partners have been working to contain SLF populations since 2014. There is the potential for far reaching economic damage if the SLF becomes widely established in the United States.

See also: Biocontrol Factsheets for more information on biocontrol agents

Identifying the leading edge of an invasion can be difficult, especially when the invader is a native transplant, or if the invader is not well-known. This tool allows a user to upload a biological dataset collected anywhere in the conterminous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, or Island Territories to screen for occurrences of non-native and invasive aquatic species tracked by the NAS Database.

See also: ITP Products for more screening aids

See also: ITP Products for more screening aids

See also: ITP Products for more screening aids

See also: ITP Products for more screening aids

See also: ITP Products for more screening aids

The Screwworm Eradication Program Records, housed in Special Collections of the National Agricultural Library (NAL), documents one of the greatest success stories in the history of American agriculture. Led by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the eradication of the screwworm from the United States, Mexico, and most of Central America marked a major victory over the destruction of domestic and wild animals by an insect which feeds only on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals.

The Screwworm Eradication Program Records document research and eradication efforts from the 1930s through 2000. These materials include correspondence, plans, reports, scientific papers and manuscripts, publications, raw research data and research analyses, livestock producer information materials and reports, cooperative agreements, photographs, maps and artifacts.

Reducing the potential to spread aquatic invasive species via the seaplane pathway. This project is intended to help the Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) Task Force reduce the risk of impacts of aquatic invasive species through the seaplane pathway by engaging with seaplane pilots and seaplane/seaplane equipment manufacturers in the lower 48 and Alaska to help prevent the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species; improve the ability of seaplane pilots to lessen the spread of aquatic invasive species by developing best management practices that will be accepted and used by pilots; assessing the risk of aquatic invasive species spread by the seaplane pathway in different regions of the U.S. and compiling and sharing all information garnered through this research. A project funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and implemented by various partners (Creative Resource Strategies, LLC, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, Sea Grant and Conservation Collaborations).