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These data sheets are an adaptation of the IUCN supported Environmental Impacts Classification of Alien Taxa (EICAT) protocol for assessment of impacts of invasive species. A text version of the protocol is available in Hawkins et al. 2015 (see readme file). The data sheets provide a standard format for reporting and summarizing invasive species impacts.
Citation: Bradley, Bethany A. 2018. Data sheets for assessment of invasive species impacts. Data and Datasets. 58.
Forests are incredibly important to pollinators. Forest pollinators can also provide substantial economic benefits to neighboring agricultural areas, as a new global review paper discusses. Forest pollinators are easy to overlook – they are often highly seasonal, especially in temperate regions, and many are active far above our heads in the forest canopy.
A worm is a worm is a worm, right? Except that there are more than 7,000 species of worms, and the longer you look, the more complex their world becomes. Earthworms compete. Earthworms invade. Earthworms… jump?
Environmental DNA (eDNA) has gone from new science on the block to a star of the show. With just a water, soil, or snow sample, ecologist Tommy Franklin and fellow scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station are detecting rare aquatic and terrestrial species by identifying the genetic material they leave behind.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is the genetic material from a plant or animal that is found in the air, water or soil. Fish, such as invasive carp, release DNA into the environment in the form of skin cells, secretions, and feces. This DNA can be collected from water samples in the field and be used to indicate the potential presence of an individual species. eDNA testing is useful as a potential early indicator of invasive carp presence and was developed to improve monitoring of such aquatic invasive species.
Assays of environmental DNA — traces of genetic material found in air, soil, and water — may improve scientists’ ability to detect bat roosts and track the spread of white-nose syndrome, a disease caused by a killer fungus spread easily in the close quarters of hibernacula. In this research, scientists experienced success in detecting bats in field collected samples of environmental DNA, though the technology is still in the experimental stage.
Whether called wild pigs, feral hogs, or wild boars, these opportunistic and invasive omnivores live in groups called sounders. Removing whole sounders is the most effective management method, but requires follow-up trapping and hunting due to their incredible reproductive potential.