Giant snails and tiny insects threaten the South's rice and crawfish farms
Josh Courville has harvested crawfish his whole life, but these days, he's finding a less welcome catch in some of the fields he manages in southern Louisiana.
Invasive species are non-native organisms that establish self-sustaining populations and spread beyond their initial introduction sites, causing or likely to cause significant ecological, economic, or health impacts. Research on invasive species examines pathways of introduction, propagule pressure, life-history traits that facilitate invasion (e.g., high reproductive rate, broad ecological tolerance), and interactions with native communities, including competition, predation, hybridization, and pathogen transmission. The topic also encompasses invasion stages (transport, introduction, establishment, spread), invasion ecology theory (e.g., enemy release, biotic resistance), risk assessment, and management strategies such as prevention, early detection, rapid response, and long-term control or eradication.
Josh Courville has harvested crawfish his whole life, but these days, he's finding a less welcome catch in some of the fields he manages in southern Louisiana.
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