Riparian ecosystems provide critical habitat for a broad diversity of aquatic and terrestrial species. However, due to their connectivity along river corridors, and the tendency for people to build roads, infrastructure, and other settlements next to rivers, riparian ecosystems are vulnerable to colonization by invasive plant and animal species. Early...
Students will develop and apply reading, language arts, and science processes to analyze comics, and demonstrate writing skills in creating their own comic about a local invasive species.
Drosophila suzukii was a known pest of berries, grapes, and stone fruits in East Asia for almost a century. Yet in recent years it has successfully migrated throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe due to globalized fruit trade. The invasive success of D. suzukii is causing unrest for fruit...
This work is inspired by problems in natural resource management centered on the challenge of invasive species. Computing optimal management policies for maintaining ecosystem sustainable is challenging. Many ecosystem management problems can be formulated as MDP (Markov Decision Process) planning problems. In a simulator-defined MDP, the Markovian dynamics and rewards...
Select an “Invader” species found in the Pacific Northwest. Research, design, publish and present a high quality informative Not Wanted Poster/Product.
In this fun activity, students guess answers to clues about invasive species on a bingo-like game-board, and serves as a great introduction for students and teachers alike.
(Same lesson plan as Myocaster Multiplier but a more challenging student activity.)
This more advanced version of Myocastor multiplier asks students to take into account predation when calculating population growth rate.
How big can a nutria population get? In this activity, students calculate and graph the growth rate of a population of nutria based on a set of realistic assumptions.
Students practice geographical skills to map the routes of invasive species from their native habitat to some of the regions to which the exotics have spread.
Students conduct a "blitz" by quickly rotating through hands-on specimen stations and answering the BioBlitz questions. Then, students are assigned one invader to research more thoroughly and present to the class.
In Design the Ultimate Invader, students use their imagination to design the ultimate invasive species. This activity is a perfect way to launch a unit on invaders, and can serve as an assessment tool to help us learn the knowledge of our learners towards invasive species and invasion biology.
Crayfish are one of the most threatened groups of animals in the world. About 45 percent of North American crayfish species are considered to be at risk of extinction. However, a few crayfish species are among the world's most invasive freshwater organisms. Taking into consideration that invasive crayfish are the...
The American Bullfrogs are a highly reproductive aquatic species that are native in central, eastern United States and Southeastern Canada. This species was first introduced to western America as a food source (frog legs!); since then it escaped aquaculture ponds and have spread widely. Bullfrogs lay up to 20,000 eggs...
The nutria is a large, semi-aquatic rodent native to South America. Nutria were introduced to the United States for their fur. After a boom in nutria ranches during the 1930s, the animals escaped or were released from fur farms in the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana and other states, where theyare now...
Asian carps—fish in the Cyprinid family—have been part of our culture for centuries. We use them as ornamental aquarium fish (goldfish and koi) and food fish, and to help keep aquaculture ponds clean. However, when Asian carps escape into natural waterways, they can cause big problems for human health, the...
Knotweeds are a group of closely related invasive plants from Asia. Knotweeds are very tall plants that can grow to over three meters with bamboo-like hollow stems and heart-shaped or lance-shaped leaves. They spread quickly and form tall, dense thickets. They dominate stream banks, sides of roads, gardens, and other...
What ancient animal in modern times has a primitave spinal cord that may resemble the first vertebrates on earth, spends most of its life stuck to a boat or rock, produces an exoskeleton made of cellulose and is more associated with plants than animals? Tunicates are marine invertebrate filter feeders...
This paper deals with the control of an invasive species, void of market value, and acting as a space competitor for a native valuable harvested species. The paper presents a theoretical bioeconomic model describing the interacting dynamics of the two stocks. In the model, control variables are the levels of...
The European green crab, Carcinus maenas, is a generalist predator that has established invasive populations throughout the
world, including the west coast of North America. In Oregon, strong cohorts of green crabs recruit only during major El Niño
events. The goals of this study are to: 1) compare the abundance...
The spatial and temporal behavior of invasive species spread implies that optimal management strategies involve decisions over space and time. Dispersal and propagule pressure are two primary drivers of the spatial-temporal ecological process of species invasion. In the case of riparian communities, stream flow drives the dispersal of vegetation propagules....
Hydrilla and Brazilian elodea are invasive aquatic plants that occupy freshwater habitats. While hydrilla is native to Asia, Africa, and eastern Australia, and Brazilian elodea is native to South America, both plants are invasive to North America. Because these plants are related and both have pointed green leaves that whorl...
New Zealand mudsnails are a highly invasive species of freshwater mollusk of the family Hydrobiidae, also known as spring snails. Their ability to clone themselves and maintain high reproductive rates allows them to rapidly spread throughout the western United States. Some estimates indicate that one female can clone and produce...
The Chinese mitten crab was first identified in the south San Francisco Bay in 1992 by commercial shrimp trawlers, and quickly spread to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The Chinese mitten crab threatens ecosystems, earthen structures, and fisheries by preying on and competing with many species, including fish eggs,...
Colonies of millions of quagga and zebra mussels foul and clog pipes, water treatment plants, and dam turbines and give a competitive boost to toxic algae. It takes only one contaminated boat and the right conditions for zebra and quagga mussels to infest a new watershed; once they have been...
The Red-Eared Slider, also called the red-eared terrapin, is an American breed of turtle widely spread across the USA, and is quickly becoming an invasive species in many parts of the world. It is also the most popular breed of pet turtle in the US and is widely kept as...
The European green crab, Carcinus maenas, is a generalist predator that has established invasive populations throughout the world, including the west coast of North America. In Oregon, strong cohorts of green crabs recruit only during major El Niño events. The goals of this study are to: 1) compare the abundance...
The Norwegian government has recently put forward a white paper concerning the management of the red king crab in the Barents Sea. The crab is an introduced species in the Barents Sea. The motive of the introduction was to improve the economy of the Russian coastal fisheries, as the crab...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990s. A strong year class arrived during the 1998 El Niño, but numbers decreased and remained below 1 per trap per day until the arrival of the 2015-2016 El Niño. Since then, numbers...
European green crab, Carcinus maenas, trapped and collected in coastal Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries during the 2019. Data for individual crabs include: estuary, site, date of collection, sex, carapace width, weight, molt stage (color of abdomen), missing limbs, estimated year class, method of collection, and name of collector.
This...
Students sharpen analytical, logic, and problem solving tools by thinking critically about how human activities spread invasive species and how to control them.
Great Lakes coastal wetland communities are threatened by the impacts of invasive plants on ecosystem function and biodiversity. What allows invasive plants to become dominant in invaded communities can be hard to define and context-dependent. Traits associated with invasion success in wetland systems – rapid vegetative growth, competitive superiority in...
European green crab, Carcinus maenas, trapped and collected in coastal Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries during the 2019. Data for individual crabs include: estuary, site, date of collection, sex, carapace width, weight, molt stage (color of abdomen), missing limbs, estimated year class, method of collection, and name of collector.
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990s. A strong year class arrived during the 1998 El Niño, but numbers decreased and remained below 1 per trap per day until the arrival of the 2015-2016 El Niño. Since then, numbers...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990s. A strong year class arrived in the Davidson Current during the 1998 El Niño, but numbers decreased and remained below 1 per trap per day until the arrival of the 2015-2016 El...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990s. After the arrival of a strong year class in 1998, significant recruitment to the populations occurred only in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Warm winter water temperatures,...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990s. After the arrival of a strong year class in 1998, significant recruitment to the populations occurred only in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Warm winter water temperatures, high...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990’s. After the arrival of a strong year class in 1998, significant recruitment to the populations occurred only in 2005, 2006, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Warm winter water temperatures, high Pacific Decadal Oscillation...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has persisted in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990’s. After the arrival of a strong year class in 1998, significant recruitment to the populations occurred only in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2016. Warm winter water temperatures, high Pacific Decadal...
The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) has a six-year life span and has persisted at low densities in Oregon and Washington coastal estuaries since the late 1990’s. After the arrival of a strong year class in 1998, significant recruitment to the Oregon and Washington populations occurred only in 2003, 2005,...
Isotope and stomach content data from piscivorous reservoir fishes collected from Hills Creek (isotopes; 43°40′16″N 122°25′33″W) and Lookout Point (isotopes and stomach contents; 43°53′48″N 122°43′34″W) reservoirs located on the Middle Fork Willamette River, Oregon. Additional details can be found in the related publication.
Isotope sampling was conducted under OSU Institutional...
The Western Pacific Ocean barred knifejaw Oplegnathus fasciatus was found from 2013 to 2015 along the Pacific Coast of North America from Washington to California. The knifejaw was found in derelict vessels that had arrived on the Pacific Coast and that had been lost during the March 2011 Great Japan...
Nonindigenous species are a major threat to the ecological integrity and biodiversity of marine and estuarine ecosystems. To become a successful invader, species must pass through four phases: (1) survive transport, (2) survive release, (3) establish a population, and (4) expand their range. To better understand these processes, an integrated...
In the case of lake management for recreational use, policy makers often face a balancing act. They must maintain both the ecological quality of sites and the welfare of recreationists. In Wisconsin's Northern Highland Lake District, recreational boaters inadvertently transport aquatic invasive species between lakes. Economic models of boater demand...
Wetland restoration success in attaining wildlife conservation goals can be confounded by the presence of multiple biological invaders. Wetland management activities typically target invasive plants, but bottom-up responses of higher trophic levels in novel communities are difficult to predict. We surveyed plant and amphibian assemblages at 26 sites enrolled in...