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Invasive cheatgrass, reviled by Western ranchers and conservationists, has long since earned a reputation as a firestarter, making wildfires worse and more common. Same with climate change: It's well understood that climate warming is making western wildfires worse. But it’s not just cheatgrass anymore, or just a warming West: a new analysis finds at least seven other non-native grasses can increase wildfire risk in places across the country, some doubling or even tripling the likelihood of fires in grass-invaded areas.

European green crabs are one of the most widespread invasive marine species on the planet, originally reaching Washington in 1996. When green crab populations grow too large, they compete with other shellfish, disturb the sediment, and destroy the eelgrass that is an important habitat for Dungeness crab and salmon. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is working to increase the effectiveness of Washington’s green crab early detection and rapid response program. Research conducted at the USGS' Western Fisheries Research Center aims to improve native shellfish habitat and limit the spread of European green crabs in coastal waters.

The green crab, Carcinus maenas, is a widely distributed invasive species that eventually alters its new environment. It's assumed that such species have high genetic diversity, or a variety of characteristics allowing them to adapt and thrive. But the green crab has low genetic diversity, while still spreading rapidly in a new part of the world. A U.S. National Science Foundation-funded study led by Carolyn Tepolot of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is investigating the adaptive mechanisms of the green crab along the west coast of North America, where it has shown extensive dispersal in the last decade despite minimal genetic diversity. The results are published in Molecular Ecology. The project is a collaboration among scientists at WHOI, Portland State University, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the University of California, Davis.

See also: Spotted Lanternfly in Home Gardens for more resources

The invasive Asian jumping worm (Amynthas agrestis) has many common names: Alabama jumpers, Jersey wrigglers, wood eel, crazy worms, snake worms, and crazy snake worms. “Invasive Asian jumping worms got their name because of the way they thrash around,” said Mac Callaham, a Forest Service researcher who specializes in soils. “They can flip themselves a foot off the ground.”

Like other earthworms, Asian jumping worms eat tiny pieces of fallen leaves. But there’s a problem. Those fallen leaves make up the top layer of forest soil. The litter layer, as it’s called, is home to a vast number of tiny animals. Many plants can’t grow or spread without the layer of leaf litter. “Soil is the foundation of life – and Asian jumping worms change it,” says Callaham. “In fact, earthworms can have such huge impacts that they’re able to actually reengineer the ecosystems around them.”

What could be more 2020 than an ongoing invasion of jumping worms? These earthworms are wriggling their way across the United States, voraciously devouring protective forest leaf litter and leaving behind bare, denuded soil. They displace other earthworms, centipedes, salamanders and ground-nesting birds, and disrupt forest food chains. They can invade more than five hectares in a single year, changing soil chemistry and microbial communities as they go, new research shows. And they don’t even need mates to reproduce...

The Invasive Lionfish Web Portal, developed by the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute in partnership with NOAA, supports the management and control of lionfish in conservation areas along the Southeast coast of the U.S. and Caribbean.

The Invasive Mosquito Project is aimed at monitoring invasive container-inhabiting mosquito species across the United States. By doing this monitoring, we can determine where the invasive mosquito species, as well as native species, are distributed across the U.S. and define at-risk human and animal populations based on this distribution. This citizen science project provides students, teachers, and anyone interested the opportunity to collect real data and contribute to a national mosquito species distribution study.

• USDA Wants Citizen-scientists to Help Fight Zika (May 17, 2016)
  The Associated Press; The Denver Post.

Invasive zebra and quagga mussels alter ecosystem dynamics and affect industrial, municipal, and recreational water users. The negative impacts of these dreissenid mussels drove scientists to search for effective control methods beginning in the early 1990s. Since then, researchers have uncovered various control methods, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Both chemical and physical treatments have been developed and used by state and federal agencies in the control of zebra mussels.

Looking for answers to your mussel questions? Interested in funding opportunities and compliance requirements for research? Want more information about management and control of mussels? There are a variety of experts within the Invasive Mussel Collaborative ready to answer whatever questions you may have!

The Invasive Mussel Collaborative announced today that it has released a new strategy to reduce invasive mussels and their negative impacts. The Strategy to Advance Management of Invasive Zebra and Quagga Mussels is intended to drive investments, policy, and research around invasive mussels across the Great Lakes region and beyond. Since their initial discovery in 1989, zebra and quagga mussels have had dramatic impacts on the Great Lakes ecosystem and economy, including changes to the food web, degrading fish habitat, interfering with drinking water systems and damaging tourism and recreation economies. Today, these mussels continue to spread to new water bodies across the U.S. and Canada.