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Strange Days on Planet Earth – (Invaders)
Movie Notes
A Number of species are now being moved around the planet
 Coastlines of United States – Rapid Assessment
 New Orleans – Termites
 Lake Victoria – Wild Hyacinth
 Big Island, Hawaii – Myconia
New England Coast and Oakland California
Biologist Jim Carlton – Rapid Assessment
 Docks on East Coast
 Species always restless – Humans now moving them globally
 Each new species has the opportunity for catastrophe
 Rapid movement of species arriving at docks
 Brought in on Cargo ships and as ballast in the sea water
 7000 species in motion every hour around the planet
 Analyze boxes placed along dock for two years – only one native species on box
 99% of species by weight come from somewhere else in the world
New Orleans, United States
Biologist – Claudia Riegel
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Invaders destroying homes
Moved here after surrender of Japan at the end of WWII
Crates from local wood (China)sent home with supplies ending in garbage dumps near military
bases
Formosan Subterranean Termites
1960’s they began to swarm – destroying homes in the French Quarter
Successful because of climate and unlike local termites found in both the ground and in trees
away from insecticides – local species only in the ground
1 city block can host 10 nests
To control exploiting one behavior – they are social (share food)
Find termites on food trails with bait and replace with poison which they take back to the nest
Lake Victoria, Uganda
Entomologist – James Ongwan
 Niles Crocodile – large predator – threat to all large animals
 Attacks increasing on humans but not due to an increase in crocs
 Dysentery and Malaria are up
 Schistosomiasis is also up – fishing near bank
 The Nile Perch (invader) was added to the lake and thrived on native fish which vanished (200 species)
 Perch Attracted fishermen which increased croc attacks
 Water hyacinth (invader from south America) also introduced in 1989 and 7 years later it clogged 80%
of the coastline
 Promotes disease by causing brackish water which increases mosquitoes and snails vectors of these
diseases
 Importing Weevils to attack the plant – larvae in roots and adults eating the leaves
Pacific Islands Story of Bio-control that has failed
Rats invaded the islands
Imported Monitor Lizards but ate poultry
Imported Cane Toads (poisonous) which killed the lizards
Cane Toads exploded and began to kill cats
The cats dying caused an explosion on rats
Invasions
North America - Asian Tiger Mosquitoes – Carry West Nile Virus
United States – Fire Ants and Killer Bees
Guam – Brown Vine snake
Big Island, Hawaii
Botanist: David Duffy
 Invader: Myconia (plant with purple leaves)
 Trigger landslides on the island creating erosion and the runoff can be deadly
 Threatening the coral reefs which are covered with sediment
 Palms, flower leis, macadamia nuts, pineapples are all non-natives
 Japanese White Eye (another invader – a bird) spread the seeds from backyards
 Shallow roots don’t hold on to soil well
 Remote sensing is used to map areas with the plant
 Removed by volunteers
Invasive species are the second largest cause of species extinction behind only habitat destruction!!!!!!!!!!!!