The Effect of Invasive Species The piece I chose to do my literary analysis on was the article, The Truth About Invasive Species, written by Alan Burdick. The article states that invasive species are all around us, but the area with the most prominent amount is the suburbs of Miami. It goes into detail about how abundant invasive species are in this area. Most people who would see a strange animal in their lawn or area would be bemused, however for the people of Southern Florida, this is a recurring scene. Burdick states that “virtually everyone in the South Florida, including Hardwick, has a neighbor with a backyard menagerie of lucrative critters on hold for resale”. Burdick describes both how an invasive species is introduced into an ecosystem, and the impact the have on other species upon their arrival. …show more content…
This is because there are so many species close to each other, but little expertise managing them. Since so many animals escape each year, it is hard for people to apprehend all of them, which leaves them to reproduce and increase their numbers throughout the ecosystem. Sometimes, people get exotic animals as pets, and when they don’t want to care for them anymore, they let them loose into the wild. This poor and unsafe behavior can also wreak havoc in the ecosystem. The issue with this is that people will recognize that a lion in the road is out of place, however, people would not notice a new plant or a small tree frog. Not all evasions are bad per say; Burdick talks about how “marine environments turn out to be particularly absorbent to-and forgiving of-alien species.” In other words, certain biomes are capable of accepting and thriving with newly introduced species. If this is true, then why are invasive species notorious for being destructive in new
Life is constantly changing, like clouds in the sky; always shifting and turning. People never really know which way life will turn next, bringing them fortune or failure. When you look at how things change it is best to compare it to something that you can relate it to. The changeable nature of life can be related to the novel 'The Bean Trees.' This is a book written almost entirely on dealing with changes in the characters lives.
Invasive species as a whole have become a nuisance to many habitats and ecosystems around the world. What defines an invasive species is the following. It must be a species that is foreign to the habitat it resides in, have no natural predators which allow it to reproduce in such a rapid manner, and out compete native animals of food and shelter (Rosenthal 2011). These characteristics are what create such high populations of these invasive species in various habitats around the globe.
Unable to handle their giant snakes, and unable to find new homes for them, some owners illegally release them into the wild. They are also an invasive species, which means that they are not constrained by natural factors as much as they were in their native habitat. Invasive species have the potential to harm their new environments. The release of Burmese pythons in South Florida is especially troublesome because the subtropical climate and the vast undisturbed habitats of the Everglades enable the species to thrive.
The Europeans changed the land of the home of the Indians, which they renamed New England. In Changes in the Land, Cronon explains all the different aspects in how the Europeans changed the land. Changing by the culture and organization of the Indians lives, the land itself, including the region’s plants and animals. Cronon states, “The shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes well known to historians in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations less well known to historians in the region’s plant and animal communities,” (Cronon, xv). New England went through human development, environmental and ecological change from the Europeans.
Nonnative species can also be called alien, exotic, or nonindigenous. Their presence is due to humans dispersing them to other locations beside their native habitat, or by humans creating environmental conditions that allow their growth. When nonnative species begin to take over a new habitat and displace native species, they are then termed an invasive species. Nonnative invasive species are one of the biggest threats to ecosystems in North America (Cox, 1999) because they are able to have an impact on many levels, including ecosystems, communities, and populations (Cushman, Tierney, & Hinds, 2004).
Global change is taking place every day; therefore, it is important to understand how human activities and behavior alters the biodiversity and functions of ecosystems. Alien species is a stimulator of major changes in ecosystems (Vila et al. 2011). An invasive species, is a non-native plant, animal, or fungus that moves to a new ecosystem in a foreign environment. Invasive ecology explores how the invasive species affect the economic, environmental, and human health on the new environment. For example, invasive ecology studies how an invasive species tends to crowd out and sometimes replace a native species (Richardson and Pysek 2008).
Parry, Wynne. (Sept. 23Rd , 2011) Exotic Pets Turning Invasive, Threatning Florida. Tech Media. Retrieved March 10th 2014, from http://www.livescience.com/16204-florida-invasive-reptiles-amphibians.html
Invasive species only started to show up in the United States when the Europeans started to arrive. Beforehand, very limited contact was made in this particular region of the world, so very few invasive species came into North America. When the Europeans arrived in 1492, after Columbus discovered North America, they brought their own culture and essential food and animals with them. At first, it was just the basics of maize, wheat, pumpkins, and squash, but later on it also included cows, chickens, and horses . As more Europeans flocked into the country, non-native species began to appear in the area. Often, as non-native species appeared it led to unintended consequences of destroying gra...
Personally, I love seafood. I have had the privilege to eat the freshest of fish from both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I have been able to enjoy many types of fish cooked in many different ways. With that said, I was interested in Paul Greenberg’s, Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, due to my simple curiosity to what it is that has made fish so popular.
Ultimate freedom is an odyssey everyone, at least once in their lifetime, tries to conquer. Chris McCandless did everything in his power to try and capture that freedom he was searching for. He ultimately gave up his own life during that quest. Did he find what he was searching for? We may never know. Very many people have diverse opinions on this character. Chris McCandless was not selfish. He was a young, well-educated boy. His parents handed him everything on a silver platter; he wanted to prove not only to himself but to everyone else he could do things on his own. His possessions did not define who he was as a person. He thought towards everyone else he was just another brick in the wall, a pretty rich boy, and that did not “fly” with him. He had to prove his worth.
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
When people think of invasive species they normally do not think of the human species, but why not? There is a large debate about whether or not human are an invasive species. Before people debate about whether or not the human race is an invasive species they should know the definition of one. The legal definition of an invasive species in the United States is “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” (Zielinski). The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, defines an invasive species as “animals, plants or other organisms introduced by man into places out of their natural range of distribution, where they become established and disperse, generating a negative impact on the local ecosystem and species” (Zielinski). If we recognize that the human race is an invasive species then we can take steps to lessen the places we are at, the damage we do to the environment, and the damage we do to other species.
Invasive species, (also known as invasive alien species or simply alien species) are defined as any organism (plant, animal, pathogen, or other living thing) that is alien (non-native) to an ecosystem, which can cause adverse economical, ecological, or health effects to native species and/or humans. The roots of these problems all stem from the massive negative ecological impact these organisms are having on the environment (CBD, 2009). For all animal extinctions where the cause is known since the 1600’s, invasive alien species have been a contributing factor 40% of the time (CBD, 2006); the second most contributing factor to extinctions after loss of habitat (GC, 2013). By eliminating native species through competition for resources, predation, and transmittal of disease, invasive species continue to reduce biodiversity in almost all ecosystems around the world (CBD, 2009). In the future, this problem may worsen, and if no action is taken, could lead to a cascading ecological problem so large that whole communities or even ecosystems could collapse.
Introducing exotic species has been a highly debated issue. Why should we bring another animal or plant into a region to eradicate another species? That’s the question that people have been asking for ages. Of course, there are positives to bringing in another species, but many times, there are just as many negatives. Also, these species can be introduced accidentally or intentionally. The new organism may cause no obvious problems and eventually, it will be considered “native” to the area. For example, corals are “perhaps the oldest animals on the planet, and these long-lived corals have evolved in one of the Earth’s most stable environments” (Eichenberg, p.2). If a new type of fish were to be put into the ecosystem with the corals, the coral would be affected. First, the fish might eat the coral. Second, they could use the coral for shelter, and possibly damaging it that way. Third, the fish could bring predators that might also eat the coral. Introducing an exotic species has the “rippling affect” of dropping a stone into a pool of water. Everything outside the epicenter is affected. A study was done at Cornell University, and they estimated that $120 billion per year are spent fixing the problems caused by exotic species” (Chiras, p.
One of the big causes of extinction or the endangerment of species is foreign species entering a habitat. This species that are not native to the land can disrupt the food web in that community. These species take control of the food web and endanger some of the other species. The native species become endangered and over the course of many years they either adapt to their new way or life, the foreign predator leaves or is killed off due to the different environment, or the species is killed off and becomes extinct. Organizations like the “World Wild Li...