Biodiversity

Leisure and Tourism - Introduction of non-native species.

• Tourists and travellers have often unwittingly introduced non-native species into the local environment they are visiting.
• These invasive species can also be introduced in other ways.
  Can you think of any?
• The introduced species can cause enormous disruption and even destruction of ecosystems.
• Such large impacts may occur because natural predators do not exist to control their numbers or the introduced species may compete more successfully for resources than the local native species occupying that niche.

There have been many examples since travel began.

•  Prickly Pear cactus in Australia
•  The American grey squirrel to the UK
•  Colorado beetle to Europe

A range of modern examples can be found on the:

•  Global Invasive Species Database
•  Convention on Biological Diversity website

 Population Growth

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