Search results

Fact Sheets on alien invasive plant species found in natural areas in the United States. Produced by the Plant Conservation Alliance's Alien Plant Working Group, a public-private partnership of groups working to protect native plants by ensuring that native plant populations and their communities are maintained, enhanced and restored.

Invasive species are the single most important conservation problem at the species level. When a new species colonizes a new habitat, it finds good conditions since the local organisms do not have an evolutionary history exposure to the invaders. Potential prey has not evolved defenses against the newcomer and predators do not recognize it as prey. American bullfrog (Lithobates castebiana) was introduced in Northern New Mexico more than 50 years ago. Its impact on the local fauna has been quite important driving to extinction many local populations of native species. In this Study we set out to assess the impact that the bullfrog predation on the local wildlife. We studied the diet of 268 via analyzing their stomach content. Surprisingly we did not find any of the native amphibians in the diet of the bullfrogs. In fact, an invasive species of crayfish seems to be the dominant prey item in their diet. We hypothesize that local populations of leopard frogs might have evolved behavioral avoidance of bullfrog predation. The potential use of this population to restock places where leopard frogs have gone extinct is an appealing, and seemingly possible, alternative.

The Continental Dialogue on Non-Native Forest Insects and Diseases cultivates and catalyzes collaborative action among diverse interests to abate the threat to North American forests from non-native insects and diseases.

The combined effects of agriculture, climate change, and river channelization have left native Northern New Mexico species vulnerable to predation and competition from invasive species. This study examines the demographic changes of the native Northern leopard frogs after the removal of the invasive species the American Bullfrog. A section of the Mora River was divided in 2000- meter long section. One control region where no bullfrogs were eliminated and an experimental region where we eradicated Bullfrogs. Fifty one Leopard frogs were captured, pit tagged, and processed for demographic data. Control and experimental regions did not differ in the relative abundance of leopard frogs. We did not find significant difference in the mass of frogs from the two regions either. The preliminary data does show lower average mass and greater abundance in the experimental region suggesting an increase in recruitment of metamorphosis frog into the population. A change in demography within a year of bullfrog removal shows how fast a species can react to environmental changes.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southwestern Region. Technical Paper TP-R3-16-2. January 2010

An ecoregional curriculum for grades 9-12. Written by Jennie Crammer, Jody Einerson, Yvonne Hickerson, 2016. Institute for Applied Ecology

Idaho's Noxious Weeds

Web page with information and resources on invasive plants and animals, from the Forest Guild website.

News release November 4, 2014

Comparing locations where invasive Bullfrogs have been eradicated with locations where populations density was unaltered, invasive Crayfish population abundance and structure is analyzed due to the great deal of predation pressure from Bullfrogs.