There can be many reasons for how an invasive species may come about. It can be classfied into one of the two groups, intentional or unintentional. Once they have been introduced, it is not hard for them to reproduce and grow rapidly due to the lack of natural predators. As mentioned before, every ecosystem has a balance, with the right amount of predators and prey such that the population of all species within it are sustainable. However, when a new species is introduced, there is no natural predator and thus the population will bloom, helping it to be significantly established within an ecosystem.

Intentional introduction is a deliberate introduction of a foreign species by humans. The person may not have the intention for the invasive species to be established in the ecosystem, but as it is intentional as long as he/she is conscious of the action of bringing a foreign species to a new ecosystem. This is usually done for many different purposes. For example, a farmer may want to introduce a specific species of frog to reduce the amount of bugs on his farm, but the population of the frogs could multiply due to a lack of predators.

Image from: www.news.com.au

Unintentional introduction is accidental, or is unknown to human when the species is introduced. This is usually done through transportation means, when the foreign species ‘hitch a ride’ from a vehicle, travelling to different places around the world.

In Singapore, the largest contributor of exotic species is largely intentional, back in time when traders from all around the world used Singapore as a trading hub for all the exotic animals and crops. Currently, there are regulations to curb such introduction of species into our ecosystem. Which will be talked about in the solutions page!

In this blog we discuss one intentional method and one unintentional method of introducing species, as well as natural migration as the cause of exotic species.