AUSTIN, Texas — Scientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species — in as little as 15 years — as a result of pressure from an invading lizard species, introduced from Cuba.
After contact with the invasive species, the native lizards began perching higher in trees, and, generation after generation, their feet evolved to become better at gripping the thinner, smoother branches found higher up. (more…)
Max Li’s research could inform policies to promote sustainable native environments and curb the invasion of alien plant species.
Max Li, a University of Arizona doctoral student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is studying mechanisms that determine how competing desert plants can coexist with each other and what factors can cause the destruction of this stable coexistence.
His research could help inform policies to curb the spread of invasive species. (more…)
Ecologists are wary of non-native species, but along the shores of Cape Cod where grass-eating crabs have been running amok and destroying the marsh, an invasion of a predatory green crabs has helped turn back the tide in favor of the grass. The counter-intuitive conclusions appear in a new paper in the journal Ecology.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Long vilified, invasive species can sometimes become an ecosystem asset. New Brown University research published online in the journal Ecology reports exactly such a situation in the distressed salt marshes of Cape Cod. There, the invasive green crab Carcinus maenas is helping to restore the marsh by driving away the Sesarma reticulatum crabs that have been depleting the marsh grasses. (more…)
