Many invasive species provide both benefits and costs to society and the environment. These benefits include aesthetic values, but also provide resources such as timber, fuelwood, fodder and food.
In a rapidly changing world, the ability to prevent invasions by intercepting foreign organisms or by implementing quarantine measures is critical. Few studies however investigate the effectiveness of such measures in preventing new or ongoing invasions.
What would researchers at the Centre for Invasion Biology and students of the UCT’s new Environmental Humanities MPhil course have to say to each other?
The alien barnacle Balanus glandula has been rapidly spreading down the South African west coast and recently moved east around Cape Point. This left researchers wondering how it is able to spread so far and why it is spreading so fast.
Prosopis is an agroforestry tree that was introduced globally to over 100 countries – including South Africa. Prosopis went through mass scale distribution and planting, to aid farmers with fodder, shade and fire wood in the arid parts of South Africa.
