Adoxophy
Photo by Hypermedia En Protection des Plants

Sometimes the best way to predict whether a species will be invasive in the U.S. is whether it has become invasive when it shows up in a new country where it has few or no natural enemies. By studying all the areas an invasive species is a pest in other countries, predictions can be made as to what parts of the U.S. might be threatened.

In the case of many species invasive plants, their true invasive nature doesn't become apparent until after several decades following their introduction. Dr. Sarah Reichard, University of Washington, has developed a model for predicting what species of woody plants will probably be invasive. A statistical test of her model found that 86% of the invasive plant species was correctly predicted in her model while 70.8% of the non-invasive species were correctly predicted.