Effects of Invasive Species
An additional factor contributing to the status of the Devils River Minnow is the introduction of foreign species. Some introduced tropical and game species now compete with the Devils River Minnow for food and spatial resources. Several nonnative species of catfish, cichlids, and bass have begun to reduce the minnow species’ numbers by feeding on both the minnows themselves and their main diet of algae and microorganisms. Loricariid catfish in particular have established large populations in the Texan habitats of the Devils River Minnow and are steadily consuming most of the available food. Largemouth bass also prey on the species’ juveniles during winter months, therefore reducing the amount of reproductively mature individuals. With the number of breeding individuals dwindling, the population is unable to replenish every season, leading to an even more rapid decline. The abundance of the Devils River Minnow tends to fluctuate in accordance with the populations of their competitive and predator species . The Devils River Minnow population is visibly diminishing, but conservation efforts are being implemented in order to curtail this decline.
Read more about this topic: Devil's River Minnow
Famous quotes containing the words effects of, effects, invasive and/or species:
“One of the effects of a safe and civilised life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Like the effects of industrial pollution ... the AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The frequency of personal questions grows in direct proportion to your increasing girth. . . . No one would ask a man such a personally invasive question as “Is your wife having natural childbirth or is she planning to be knocked out?” But someone might ask that of you. No matter how much you wish for privacy, your pregnancy is a public event to which everyone feels invited.”
—Jean Marzollo (20th century)
“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner.... Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another—cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)