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Invasive Species Research Paper

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Invasive Species
In the 5th grade my school had announced a field trip to the everglades. I was so excited to finally get to see one of america's natural wilife. I was also excited to see many animals, especially the most known animal in the park, the american crocodile, i remember seeing charts of the many times of animals and species that lived there. Listening to the way these animals live and their ecosystem was something i could never imagine to be gone. The everglades have been around 5,000 years and is known to be “ the largest subtropical wilderness in the united states” (National Park Service). It has provided a habitat for many rare and endangered animals like the mantee, american crocodile and florida panther. But a lot has changed …show more content…
There are many species including fire ants, mediterranean fruit fly, and citrus canker that damage crops or causes them stop growing. According to the U.S fish and wildlife service the U.S agriculture loses about $13 billion dollars each year due to invasive species. For example, Fire ants damage crops by tunneling through roots and stems damaging them. They also eat the seeds of plants. This is a huge problem, due to this we are adding to our states economy and decreasing our production of crops which leads to raising the cost of these products in stores.The rise of the prices are also costing big companies like coca cola, who are the creators of minute maid, and Tropicana. These species may even sometimes invade the land so much farmers may have to relocate somewhere else because of it. This causes loss of the land to the owner as well. What I do want to figure out is how are these insects passing to the U.S? Are they not inspecting produce thoroughly? What are they trying to do to stop the spreading of these invasive insects? Going through my research I had trouble finding the answer to these questions. This showed me that these invasive species can affect our agriculture in a big way i've never noticed about and leads to affecting us and not just the

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