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Invasive Predators: A Synthesis Of The Past, Present, And Future, William C. Pitt, Gary W. Witmer

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive predators have had devastating effects on species around the world and their effects are increasing. Successful invasive predators typically have a high reproductive rate, short generation times, a generalized diet, and are small or secretive. However, the probability of a successful invasion is also dependent on the qualities of the ecosystem invaded. Ecosystems with a limited assemblage of native species are the most susceptible to invasion provided that habitat and climate are favorable. In addition, the number of invasion opportunities for a species increases the likelihood that the species will successfully establish. The list of routes of entry or …

Invasive Species Definition Clarification And Guidance, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

Summary

Invasive species are those that are not native to the ecosystem under consideration and that cause or are likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human, animal, or plant health. Plant and animal species under domestication or cultivation and under human control are not invasive species. Furthermore for policy purposes, to be considered invasive, the negative impacts caused by a non-native species will be deemed to outweigh the beneficial effects it provides. Finally, a non-native species might be considered invasive in one region but not in another. Whether or not a species is considered an invasive …

Androthrips Ramachandrai (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae): An Introduced Thrips In The United States, David W. Boyd, Jr., David W. Held

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Androthrips ramachandrai Karny is an exotic thrips, assumed to be predacious, and is associated with gall-inducing thrips. It was first reported in the U.S. from FL, and intercepted in CA from Thailand in 2002. We surveyed Ficus spp. with Gynaikothrips-induced galls in AL, CA, FL, HI, LA, MS, and TX, and document that A. ramachandrai is now established in CA, FL, HI, and TX. It probably has been spread by the ornamental horticulture industry. We outline its biology and compare it to a congener A. flavipes, a documented thrips predator. Androthrips ramachandrai has the potential to be a …

Movements Of European Starlings Captured At A Winter Roost In Omaha, Nebraska, H. Jeffrey Homan, George M. Linz, Garrett W. Unrein, James R. Thiele, John M. Hobbs

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were using downtown Omaha, Nebraska, as a winter roosting site. We used radio telemetry and leg streamers to track birds in this roost. Between late December 2005 and March 2006, we radio tagged 57 starlings and located them 432 times. We attached leg bands and colored leg streamers to over 1,300 starlings captured at trapping sites within 7 km (4 mi) of the downtown roost. These techniques yielded data on previously unknown sites where starlings gathered to forage, stage, and roost. The maximum distance that a marked bird was observed from the downtown roost …

Aboveground Productivity And Root–Shoot Allocation Diver Between Native And Introduced Grass Species, Brian J. Wilsey, H. Wayne Polley

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Plant species in grasslands are often separated into groups (C₄ and C₃ grasses, and forbs) with presumed links to ecosystem functioning. Each of these in turn can be separated into native and introduced (i.e., exotic) species. Although numerous studies have compared plant traits between the traditional groups of grasses and forbs, fewer have compared native versus introduced species. Introduced grass species, which were often introduced to prevent erosion or to improve grazing opportunities, have become common or even dominant species in grasslands. By virtue of their abundances, introduced species may alter ecosystems if they differ from natives in …

Anthropogenic Drivers Of Ecosystem Change: An Overview, Gerald C. Nelson, Elena Bennett, Asmeret A. Berhe, Kenneth G. Cassman, Ruth Defries, Thomas Dietz, Achim R. Dobermann, Andrew Dobson, Anthony Janetos, Marc Levy, Diana Marco, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Brian O'Neill, Richard Norgaard, Gerhard Petschel-Held, Dennis Ojima, Prabhu Pingali, Robert Watson, Monika Zurek

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

This paper provides an overview of what the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) calls “indirect and direct drivers” of change in ecosystem services at a global level. The MA definition of a driver is any natural or human-induced factor that directly or indirectly causes a change in an ecosystem. A direct driver unequivocally influences ecosystem processes. An indirect driver operates more diffusely by altering one or more direct drivers. Global driving forces are categorized as demographic, economic, sociopolitical, cultural and religious, scientific and technological, and physical and biological. Drivers in all categories other than physical and biological are considered indirect. Important …

A Framework For Spatial Risk Assessments: Potential Impacts Of Nonindigenous Invasive Species On Native Species, Craig R. Allen, Alan R, Johnson, Leslie Parris

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Many populations of wild animals and plants are declining and face increasing threats from habitat fragmentation and loss as well as exposure to stressors ranging from toxicants to diseases to invasive nonindigenous species. We describe and demonstrate a spatially explicit ecological risk assessment that allows for the incorporation of a broad array of information that may influence the distribution of an invasive species, toxicants, or other stressors, and the incorporation of landscape variables that may influence the spread of a species or substances. The first step in our analyses is to develop species models and quantify spatial overlap between stressor …

Survey Of Phytophagous Insects And Foliar Pathogens In China For A Biocontrol Perspective On Kudzu, Pueraria Montana Var. Lobata (Willd.) Maesen And S. Almeida (Fabaceae), Jiang-Hua Sun, Zhu-Dong Liu, Kerry O. Britton, Ping Cai, David Orr, Judith Hough-Goldstein

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

A three-year survey of kudzu foliage, seed, stems, and roots for associated phytophagous insects was conducted to establish basic information about the insect communities that kudzu harbors in China and to assess the abundance, diversity and damage caused by these insects. Diseases of kudzu were also surveyed in southern China. A total of 116 phytophagous insect species in 31 families and 5 orders were collected from kudzu in China, in six feeding guilds: foliage, sap, stem, terminal, seed and root feeders. The impact of foliage feeders varied from site to site and year to year, and over the course of …

Monitoring Invasive Mammalian Predator Populations Sharing Habitat With The Critically Endangered Puerto Rican Parrot Amazona Vittata, Richard M. Engeman, Desley Whisson, Jessica Quinn, Felipe Cano, Pedro Quiñones, Thomas H. White

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Critically Endangered Puerto Rican parrots Amazona vittata are one of the rarest birds in the world. Several exotic mammal species capable of preying on Puerto Rican parrots cohabit the Caribbean National Forest with the only wild population of these parrots. We used tracking plates, monitoring blocks and trapping to index black rats, small Indian mongooses and feral cats in parrot habitat and in public-use areas in the same habitat type. We had high trap success for black rats at all sites (42% of all sites combined), among the highest reported in the world. Rat response to monitoring (nontoxic bait) blocks …