A final farewell!

Over the past few months, I have been creating weekly blog posts exploring Invasive Alien Species and developing a deeper understanding of their importance with regards to the wider world we live in, but sadly it has to come to an end! 

My prior knowledge led me to believe that all Invasive Alien Species are bad and a major cause of extinction and habitat destruction across the world. Although these characteristics are true for some Invasive Alien Species such as Banana Bunchy Top Virus or Himalayan Balsam, I have learnt that this is not always the case. For instance, with the acoustic battles between native and invasive frogs in Florida, it led to the native populations altering their calls to survive alongside the new Cuban frogs entering the environment. I did not expect such adaptive behaviour to occur so rapidly and for an Invasive Alien Species to be able to enter a new habitat with such little influence.


Additionally, Dornelas et al. studied how diversity changed within biomes across the world and found no overall decrease in biodiversity. They found that despite increasing extinction levels caused by Invasive Alien Species and habitat destruction, amongst other things, there was no distinct overall decrease. It was suggested that this could be due to hybridisations occurs from invading species and shifting distributions of species due to climate change. Again highlighting the fact that Invasive Alien Species may not be as toxic and detrimental as I first thought.

Unfortunately, such successful coexistence and hybridisation is rare, and the spread of Invasive Alien Species appears to be increasing speedily. Over the past 12 weeks of research, my blame for the negative effects caused by Invasive Alien Species has shifted away from the invading species themselves, towards humans. With increased trade and transport efficiency/quantity, more Invasive Alien Species are being involuntarily spread around the world. Also, the dramatically changing climate, presumably induced by increased fossil fuel consumption, has led to more opportunity for invasions to occur. Therefore, human actions appear to be both directly and indirectly, the main cause of the increase in invasions and destruction worldwide.


Following this development of my opinion, I explored ways in which humanity can try and prevent further damage to both ecosystems and biodiversity and control the Invasive Alien Species already in action. It was highlighted throughout, that controlling them requires both cooperation between countries and between governments and the local people to successfully eradicate problematic species, a much wider scale than I originally assumed. With human populations exponentially growing, we are spreading and invading every part of the globe's surface. Are humans, in fact, the biggest Invasive Alien Species of them all?


Well that's all for now, I hope you have enjoyed learning more about Invasive Alien Species with me and that it has inspired you find out even more!!