Trump and the Illinois governor keep feuding over an invasive fish After accusing Illinois of being an "unreliable partner," the Trump administration is handing control of a billion-dollar carp barrier to Michigan.

Trump and the Illinois governor keep feuding over an invasive fish

Henrique Alvim Corrêa’s Illustrations for The War of the Worlds (1906) Illustrations by a little-known Brazilian artist for the first French translation of H. G. Wells’ science-fiction classic.

More generally, The War of the Worlds is an absolute romp. More illustrations by Henrique Alvim Corrêa can be seen here (publicdomainreview.org/collection/h...). And if anyone can recommend any other invasion ecology themes in pop-culture, please send them my way. Ta!

Of course, while Elton (1958) is commonly viewed as the beginning of invasion ecology as a discipline, Darwin outlined a number of ideas on the topic in OTOOS (1859). With Wells also studying under "Darwin's Bulldog" TH Huxley, it maybe isn't all that surprising that Wells' ideas were so on point.

The book highlights the importance of interplanetary biosecurity, something increasingly relevant. Recently a lunar lander carrying thousands of dormant tardigrades crashed on the moon, and mars exploration missions are underway or scheduled for the coming years. See academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

Henrique Alvim Corrêa's illustration of life after the martians' deaths. From https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/henrique-alvim-correa-war-of-the-worlds/

Wells also addresses that most invasions fail. Ultimately biotic resistance saves humanity, aided by our eco-evolutionary history with "the putrefactive and disease bacteria" that end up killing the Martians and the red weed.

More:
- "The red creeper swarmed up the trees"
- "the red weed grew tumultuously in their roofless rooms"
- "a mound of smashed brickwork, clay, and gravel, over which a multitude of red cactus-shaped plants, knee-high"
- "its swift growing and Titanic water fronds speedily choked those rivers."

Prickly pear cactus, taken from: https://www.naa.gov.au/blog/waging-war-prickly-pear

Water hyacinth, taken from: https://www.kew.org/plants/water-hyacinth

Japanese knotweed, taken from https://www.environetuk.com/japanese-knotweed/property/damage

The weed conjures ideas of Opuntia pricky pear cacti in Australia (introduced in 1925), water hyacinth (118 years before it’s addition to the EU list), and Japanese knotweed, introduced to the UK in 1850 but long before hysteria about its impacts.

Wells is famous for making predictions in his fiction that ended up coming true: atomic bombs, tanks, genetic engineering, voicenotes... But I'd argue that with the red weed he foresaw a number of impactful plant invaders.

But via the red weed he demonstrates invasional meltdown, with the weed proliferating in areas most affected by the Martians' activities (100 years before Simberloff and Von Holle 1999).

"I would come upon perfectly undisturbed spaces... The red weed was less abundant."

The human-Martian interactions are understandably the main focus, and Wells introduces themes of (literal) novel weapons, prey naiveté and the reshaping of the terrestrial food web leading to a landscape of fear ("to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away").

2. The Red Weed: an incidental "hitch-hiker" that they introduce, seemingly unintentionally. Part creeper, part cactus, it smothers trees, penetrates buildings and chokes rivers, causing flooding. The Martians clearly didn't check, clean, dry.

Picture of a martian, illustrated by Henrique Alvim Corrêa. See https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/henrique-alvim-correa-war-of-the-worlds/

Two extraterrestrial species feature:
1. The Martians: brown tentacled blobs. They struggle with the gravity of earth, but move with ease in with their metallic tripod fighting machines, destroying settlements and people with their heat rays and chemical weapons. They also drink human blood.

The War of the Worlds book cover.

I've just finished HG Wells' sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds (1898). Firstly, it's very fun. Secondly, Wells drops in a number of invasion ecology themes and ideas 60 years before Elton's The Ecology of Invasions (spoilers incoming).

www.nature.com/articles/s44... Emily Zohar and colleagues take a different angle focusing on what the ease of AI does to researchers. The authors argue that we need friction in our lives for satisfaction and growth - and AI makes our world too smooth, depriving us of challenge.

Budapest Pride thread, from the ground

An image of two lionfish. Overlay text reads: Major New Resource, Global Impacts Dataset of Invasive Alien Species

🗞️Authors from the @ipbes.net #InvasiveAlienSpecies Report have published the Global Impacts Dataset of Invasive Alien Species derived from the report, creating a global resource for investigating and managing the impacts of invasive alien species. 🌍🧪

Read more in ‪@nature.com‬ bit.ly/43APoP7

VOTE NOW! Mollusc of the Year 2025

Arctica islandica - world’s oldest mollusc
Cellana exarata - Hawaiian limpet
Glaucus atlanticus - blue dragon
Muusoctopus sp. - Dorado Octopus
Xenophora conchyliophora - shell / collector

YOU decide - we do its genome
moty.senckenberg.science
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Happy to say our gammarid competition study is out now in @neobiota.pensoft.net. Thanks to an amazing team of co-authors for making it possible.

Urban environments promote adaptation to multiple stressors 19 February 2025/Kiel. Animal populations from urban areas show significantly higher resilience to stressful environmental conditions. This was found by an international team of researchers led by Dr ...

🏙️ Animal populations from urban areas show significantly higher resilience to stressful environmental conditions.

💡This was found by international researchers led by Dr Elizabeta Briski (GEOMAR). The study is published today in the journal Ecology Letters.

🔗 www.geomar.de/en/news/arti...