Information on invasive species in the USA is a easy to find, especially the really successful ones (kudzu, zebra mussel, etc.). Extracting information about North American species that have successfully invaded other countries is much more difficult. Perusing www.invasivespecies.net and the Wikipedia article gives me the “what” for specific countries, but not the “how much.”
So what native North American species are as invasive in other countries as the kudzu and zebra mussel are here in the US?
I can think of the Eastern Grey Squirrel in the UK, but am stumped for others. For instance, the Cane Toad invaded Australia via Hawaii, but is native to Central and South America, so it doesn’t qualify.
For the animals, the American Mink, the West Indian Termite and the Mallard are the more obvious examples I can think of.
For the plants, there are way to many to list. The prickly pears, Siam weed, mesquite, Acacia farnesiana, Parthenium hysteropheorus and* Lantana camara* among the worse ones I can think of offhand, and all are are all major weeds worldwide
On invasivespecies.net, I can get every NA originating species by searching every country individually, but it still doesn’t tell me the success rate. Unfortunately those google search terms you give are even less informative.
As an example, I can see that the NA raccoon is listed as an invasive species in Germany, but I have to go to the wikipedia article on raccoons to find hard numbers.
If you go to www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov, you can find numbers, maps, articles, etc. for everything that’s invaded the US. I was hoping there would be some sort of reverse lookup info somewhere that would be as comprehensive.
A search on cangrejo americano (classified as a plague in Spain) led me to a page in Spanish about invasive species in Europe and this other one in English about invasive species in the world. Adena’s webpage says they have a database listing over 400 invasive species, but they don’t publish it on the page.
I haven’t searched further, but those look like they should contain the information you need, specially the second one.
There was something about a Scottish town recently eradicating an invasive NA plant species. Rhododendron? It was something popular in gardens, and when it got loose in the wild, it out-competed the native plants.
I came across that GISIN page before but didn’t see it had a comprehensive database. I can select parameters for spread and distribution, but the update submission function seems to be a bit wonky. I’ll try fooling around with it a bit to see if I can get anything useful.
During the Great American Interchange, there were a large number of South American flora and fauna that were pushed out by North American species, but it seems nothing comparable exists today.
Here in Troll Country we’ve got the red king crab, which is a bit of a headache for fishermen. On the one hand, they can get a good price for king crab. On the other hand, the dang things eat a lot and are damaging the ecosystem and other fisheries. It is listed as Invasive and Unwanted and the fisheries ministry would be very happy to see the Norwegian population of the species eaten into extinction.
It’s not specifically a North American species, since it’s also native to the waters around the Russian far northeast, and it was introduced by way of western Russia. But most people perceive it as a North American species, thanks to a certain well-known Discovery Channel program.
On the teeny tiny scale, the Phylloxera louse is indigenous to the Eatern seaboard of the US. Starting in 1860 or so, it made across to Europe on the first steam ships and almost completely wiped out the European wine industry. It has also spread to to California and Australia.
I know bullfrogs have turned into an invasive species but don’t know how bad they’ve gotten. (I did read an article that in France where they have no predators they can get up to around 4 pounds, IE 2 kilos but that’s probably an exaggeration.)
P.S. That reminds me of something in the OP. Why does everybody keep forgetting about the argentine ant when they talk about invasive species? (I mean, now there is an invasive species. Man are they an invasive species.)
No, to be “invasive” it has to out-compete the native plants in the wild. Those don’t grow anywhere they are not actively being cultivated.
ETA: In fact, they will rapidly die out if the farmer just let the field go, prior to harvest. They can’t even survive against the native vegetation anywhere they are not still in their native, wild form. They have been selectively bred to be high producing, without regard for their ability to exist in the wild. They have almost completely lost the ability to survive without human assistance.