Effects on Invasive Species Invasive species are closely associated with biological pest controls because the environment in which they are invasive most likely does not contain their natural enemies. If invasive species are not controlled, biodiversity may well be at great threat in the affected area. An example of an invasive species is the alligator weed. This plant was introduced to the United States from South America. This aquatic weed spreads very rapidly and causes numerous difficulties in lakes and rivers. The weed takes root in shallow water causing key problems such as, navigation, irrigation, and flood control. The flea beetle and two other biological controls had been released in Florida. Since of their success, Florida banned the use of herbicides to control alligator weed 3 years after the controls had been introduced ( Cofrancesco 2007). Biological controls for invasive species also can have a negative impact on biodiversity. The cane toad, as mentioned previously, is a wonderful example of attempting to control an invasive species. The cane toad was introduced to eradicate an invasive species. However, it became invasive, thus altering the biodiversity. The introduction of the cane toad could have potentially caused more of a disturbance in biodiversity than the targeted species did.
Effects on Future With further research and far more scientific experiments, biological pest control could potentially play a huge role in the future of pest prevention. Obviously, biological control is being utilized among society nowadays nonetheless, it could someday exterminate the use of many pesticides and herbicides, thus indirectly increasing the amount of biodiversity. Because biological control could potentially have a big economic value, if discovered to be successful, research and job fields are would increase continually. By increasing the understanding of biological control among much more and far more people, a lot of new productive biological controls could arise in the future. This could remove the overuse of chemicals, in return indirectly growing biodiversity. Biodiversity would improve because untargeted species that are exterminated with chemicals would no longer occur.

July 14th, 2011
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