Lake Tahoe part of U.N.’s concern about invasive species
By Matthew Berger, ISP
WASHINGTON — As 2010, the U.N.’s International Year of Biodiversity, gets under way, a fight against some of the most damaging invasive species in U.S. waterways is heating up.
The U.N. says some experts put the rate at which species are disappearing at 1,000 times the natural rate, and invasive species – which consume the food or habitat of native species, or the native species themselves – are one factor contributing to this acceleration. Climate change is another major factor.
“Often it will be the combination of climate change and [invasive] pests operating together that will wipe species out,” says Tim Low of the Australia-based Invasive Species Council.
