Invasive species
- June 25, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Invasive species
Subject: Environment
Section: Biodiversity
Context:
- A Vitamin D3-rich weed and a shrub with roots that wild boars love to gorge on are among the 18 invasive plants stifling the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, the best-known address of the greater one-horned rhinoceros on the Earth.
Impact of invasive species on Kaziranga national park
- Kaziranga has had to deal with encroachment, poaching, and annual floods for decades. along with the green invaders like ipomoea (Ipomoeacarnea) and mimosa (Mimosa himalaica)
- Invasive plants silently taking over the landscape at the cost of indigenous grasses, shrubs and trees.
- Invasive plants are fast clogging paths and grasslands.
- The herbivores usually avoid the invasive plants which regenerate at an alarming speed and threaten to edge out the indigenous flora.
- Some of the invasive plants have a toxic impact on the landscape after remaining underwater, which is often for two months every monsoon.
- Some weeds have herbal properties, but their toxicity outweighs their utility.
- For instance, wild boars love to gorge on the succulent rootlets of the Leea macrophylla or ‘kukurathengia’ that are fast clogging the patrolling paths and grasslands.
- Another one is the Cestrum diurnum or day-blooming jasmine of West Indies origin “coming up gregariously” on the Brahmaputra sandbars. The plant is otherwise a source of Vitamin D3.
Alien Invasive Species:
- An alien species is a species introduced outside its normal distribution.
- An alien species become ‘invasive’ when they are introduced deliberately or accidentally outside their natural areas, where they out-compete the native species and upset the ecological balance.
- Invasive alien species (IAS) are animals, plants or other organisms that are introduced into places outside their natural range, negatively impacting native biodiversity, ecosystem services or human well-being.
Examples of invasive species in India
- Common water hyacinth
- Prosopis juliflora
- Napier grass
- Indian jujube
- Mimosa pigra
- Indian Lantana