As Invasive Species Awareness Week begins, a Maryland professional is explaining how invasive species hurt Maryland’s ecosystems and have an effect on the surroundings as an entire.
An invasive species is a non-native plant or animal which spreads and quickly displaces native species. Often, they’re launched by means of human exercise and trigger financial or environmental hurt, and even hurt to people.
Luke Macaulay, wildlife administration specialist on the University of Maryland Extension, mentioned invasive species have second- and third-order results past competing with native species.
“You can have these cascading impacts across the ecosystem,” Macaulay defined. “If you think about the food web from your elementary days, where you learned how everything was interconnected, one big piece that gets changed has this ripple effect throughout the rest of the ecosystem. So, there are multiple effects from these things spreading on the landscape.”
Maryland is residence to greater than 300 invasive plant species alone, in line with the Mid-Atlantic Invasive Plant Council. Beyond vegetation just like the Japanese knotweed and water chestnut, invasive animals embody blue catfish, zebra mussels and sika deer.
Macaulay focuses primarily on invasive vegetation, declaring plants is core to each ecosystem.
“If you think about plants, they are the foundational aspect of the ecosystem,” Macaulay emphasised. “If you look at an energy pyramid, all wildlife and the whole ecosystem really starts at the vegetation level because all the photosynthesis comes from the sun. That’s the source of energy for the whole system. You have herbivores that then graze on the plants, and then predators that then eat on herbivores.”
He inspired individuals to verify their yard for unwelcome species through the use of cellular apps to establish them. Invasive species price an estimated $26 billion value of harm yearly within the U.S., in line with the National Invasive Species Information Center.