An Invasive Species Study on Severity

The conversation has slowed down... Are invasive species still a chronic issue in our environment nationally and globally?

As an impassioned environmentalist, I chose to use a supporting topic under that umbrella for a project. This project utilized python for data wrangling, manipulation, and visualization. All final visualizations were combined into a virtual poster using Canva. Datasets were collected from the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD) and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In this study, an emphasis was placed on the lack of discussion on the subject of invasive species as of late. Is this due to passive oblivion or a true solution? How does North America compare to other regions of the world? What era sourced the most invasive species to North America, and what types of organisms have been most prevalent?

Briefly summarizing my conclusions, invasive species have been on the climb since the 1980s, fitting the upward growth in overseas and air travel and shipping, making it a continual issue today as we continue our global commutes. Most organisms fall into the Animalia and Plantae kingdoms for being invasive, especially under the Arthropoda and Tracheophyta phylum. Many of the species are subspecies in similar families, as well as now considered common to our life in the US, for example, eucalyptus. While the majority of records source to the continental US, Hawaii struggles significantly with the count of cases, especially considering its comparative size. Additionally, most species have been introduced by humans, rather than being truly migratory. Finally, when comparing internationally, North America has the most registered cases by 2 more than Asia, indicating this to be a very real, current issue.

This project was conducted formally for a Computational Mathematics class at Michigan State, dedicated to Data Visualization.

To explore the Interactive pieces of this study further, check out the resource below: