Invasive alien species
Information about IAS
Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are animals and plants that are introduced accidentally or deliberately into a natural environment where they are not normally found, with serious negative consequences for their new environment. They represent a major threat to native plants and animals globally.
There is a lot of information online, and various global and regional organizations dealing with invasive species. There is in fact so much information that it can become confusing. To make it easier to quickly look up information for specific invasive alien species, I created a simple dashboard with links to fact sheets and other relevant species specific information.
Open the dashboard using the link https://ecodiv.earth/demos/IAS/index.html.
Nothing fancy, a bookmark manager if you like. It is made in R, using the packages DT for the interactive table, Flexdashboard for creating the dashboard, and Crosstalk for the filters. Icons are from Font Awesome.
Invasive species in our curriculum
Invasive alien species are one of the key topics addressed by the lectorate Innovative Bio-Monitoring, a collaboration between the HAS green academy University of Applied Sciences and Naturalis. We also try to get students involved. For example in the third term of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, first-year students of the Applied Geo-information Science program at the HAS have carried out a project in which they look at the effects of climate change on the advance of alien species in the Netherlands.