Invasive Species

The five criteria I chose to judge the different species were:
-Reduces/threatens native species in invaded area
-Interference with agriculture
-Spreads/transmits diseases
-Threatens the invaded habitat
-Rate of reproduction

These characteristics are ones that many invasive species possess and use to affect the environment and people in their native and invaded areas.  Using these characteristics, I can measure the degree of harmfulness of each species.   As I read through the profiles of several invasive species I noticed that these characteristics appeared in many of them and impacted the environment greatly, therefore, I chose these five characteristics to be my criteria.

I first went to www.issg.org and noticed that there was a section containing 100 of the worst invasive species.  Using this list I gathered not all, but several of the invasive species that affected South America and that I used to determine the worst.  As I looked at the profile of each species, I payed more attention to the section "Impact Info," which showed me how the species impacted different parts of the environment and society and in some cases precisely where the environment was affected and how it was affected in that area.  This section helped me compare the five species I found.

As I analyzed the data I collected, it was easy to eliminate the Aedes aegypti, Cervus elaphus, and Herpestes auropunctatus.  Why was it so easy for me to eliminate these species?  These species did not affect each characteristic as negatively and badly as the final two species did.  The two final species that I will be bringing to class are the Cyrprinus carpio and the Bemisia tabaci.  As I read through many sources about the impacts on the environment of these species, I notices that these species greatly affected all the characteristics that I chose easily.  These two species most negatively affected those characteristics as well. These species destructed the environment in many ways, carried diseases, interfered with agriculture, harmed the native species of the invaded area, and reduced/slowed the rate of reproduction.  In the end, I decided to enter Cyrprinus carpio in the competition.  Cyrprinus carpio is also known as common carp.