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Burmese python
In Everglades National Park, road surveys recorded far fewer raccoons, opossums, and bobcats after Burmese pythons became widespread. Researchers found the steepest mammal declines where the snakes had been established longest. The study linked the two patterns without attributing every decline to pythons.
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Zebra mussel
Cary Institute scientists were already sampling New York's Hudson River when zebra mussels arrived in the early 1990s. As the mussels filtered the water, the biomass of tiny floating algae fell by about 80 percent. The change reached the base of the food web, where those algae feed other organisms.
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Nutria
At Maryland's Blackwater refuge, nutria dug up and ate the roots of marsh plants. Losing the roots left peat exposed to erosion, so feeding could turn vegetated marsh into open water. Nutria had been brought to the refuge for fur farming in the 1940s.
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Lake trout
Lake trout are native to parts of North America, but they were introduced into Yellowstone Lake. They ate native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, leaving fewer cutthroat to migrate into shallow spawning streams where bears could catch them. Lake trout spawn in the lake itself, so they did not replace that food supply.
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Emerald ash borer
Emerald ash borer larvae feed beneath ash bark, disrupting the tree's ability to move water and nutrients. Researchers measured the gaps left by dead ash along streams in southern Michigan. The beetle's effects were visible in the structure of whole stretches of streamside forest.
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Rusty crayfish
When rusty crayfish spread through Trout Lake in northern Wisconsin, long-term monitoring recorded fewer kinds of underwater plants, fewer snails, and steep declines in the resident crayfish. The researchers could follow how changes in the lake’s shallows developed as the invasion advanced.
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Carcinus maenas
Eelgrass declined sharply in Maine's Casco Bay as European green crabs increased. In a field experiment, transplanted eelgrass shoots fared better behind barriers that kept the crabs out. The results helped explain how crabs could damage an entire underwater meadow.
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Red lionfish
In the Florida Keys, researchers found small fish called gobies in the stomachs of red lionfish, especially those from the shallow reefs they sampled. Chemical signatures also pointed to overlap in the resources used by lionfish and the native graysby grouper. That raised the possibility of competition, which the study did not establish.
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Hemlock woolly adelgid
The white tufts at the base of these hemlock needles are made by hemlock woolly adelgids. As the insects killed hemlocks in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, streams lost some of their evergreen shade. A field study found more light and wider daily swings in water temperature at affected sites.
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Argentine ant
In coastal Southern California, Argentine ants can displace native ants that coast horned lizards eat. Comparing invaded and uninvaded sites, researchers found that lizards changed what they ate in invaded areas. An insect invasion can alter the food available to an animal that rarely eats the invader itself.
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Brown tree snake
The brown treesnake reached Guam, a U.S. territory, around the middle of the 20th century. A reconstruction of Guam's bird records found that snake predation wiped out local populations or sharply reduced numbers for most of the island's resident bird species. The Guam rail disappeared from the wild there, though captive birds survived.
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Jackson's chameleon
Jackson's chameleons became established in Hawaii after a release on Oahu in the 1970s. Researchers on Oahu later found remains of native tree snails in chameleon stomachs, direct evidence that the introduced reptiles were eating snails found nowhere else. That adds a predator to forests where these snails already face other pressures.
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Feral pig
In the Great Smoky Mountains, feral swine disturb forest floors as they dig for food. A year-long field study found rooting and wallowing at different elevations and in different kinds of forest. Digging brings bare soil to the surface and can uproot the plants that share the forest floor.
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