Nature Out of Balance: How Invasive Species Are Changing the Planet

Nature Out of Balance: How Invasive Species Are Changing the Planet — page 3
Chapter One Here There and Everywhere Depending on where you live you’ve probably heard about invasive species that spell Big Trouble They’re in the news They might be in your school grounds or even your backyard Experts might have visited your class to tell you about them And you might even have been part of a group of volunteers volunteers helping in the battle against them You’ll see a few of these invasion all-stars throughout the pages of this book The white fuzz on this little brown bat’s face means it has white-nose syndrome Caused by a fungus that likely came to North America from Europe white-nose syndrome is killing millions of bats PETE PATTVINA USFWS CC BY 2.0 Eco-Fact A native species is one that occurs naturally in a place having evolved there over a long period of time without any help from humans 88 But first What IsIs an Invasive Species Anyway What an Invasive Species Anyway Any type of organism a living thing such as a plant animal insect fish fungus virus or bacteria can be an invasive species It usually doesn’t misbehave in its home habitat where it has evolved as a native species But once it has been moved to a new area where it is a non-native species it begins to spread and become a bully causing problems for the native species there and often for humans as well That’s when we call it a non-native invasive species Although these organisms are blamed for everything from extinctions of native species to billions of dollars in damage to