Invasive Species Gone Good?

Two articles about good invasive species, which provide beneficial services to the environment in one week, are a writer’s dream-come-true. In my last post, Invasive Species; Wickedly Inconvenient Still, I noted the complexities of dealing with invasive species issues. Now I find in the posting, Zebra mussels cleaning up water in Lake Eerie, a similar theme describing the positive unintended consequence of invasion. Setting aside my inability to source the science, an argument usually found in those who think there is no problem to be uncovered in the issues of invasive species, reading about the positive contributions of water hyacinth, zebra mussels, and snake heads certainly makes for interesting conversation and presentation to the general public. When this is added to the general elasticity of invasive species definitions and the challenge of explaining that, for example, in Maryland poison ivy is not invasive by definition, mostly, or that, to be invasive a species must cause harm, and I see my public speaking continuing for quite some time.