Rio Grande University

Teams of scientists, students and nature-lovers spread out across the Galveston Bay area to catalogue the ecosystems� plants, fish and small mammals in an attempt to identify and track invasive species.

The Texas Rapid Assessment Team gathered at Texas A&M University at Galveston before fanning out to to collect and log species. The program ran from Sunday to Friday.

An invasive species is one that is not native to the area, but has been introduced and is now thriving in the new environment. Often, this inclusion of a new life form can hurt the indigenous species.

Marty Kelly, an aquatic scientist with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, was a member of one of the teams sent out to gather information about fish populations. His team gathered data at tidal streams as well as some of the urban streams in the Houston area.

Kelly stressed that his group was not focused on finding one particular type of fish.

Instead, he said, he merely wanted an accurate estimate of what was out there.

�We�re going out and collecting, and seeing what we can get,� he said. �We�re interested to find out how many exotics are out there and get an idea on how they�re affecting the ecosystem around here.�

Grass carp, tilapia, sucker-mouth catfish and the Rio Grande cichlid all are species that have been introduced into the area and might pose problems for indigenous fish.

�Invasives come into the bayous and take up resources that would otherwise be used by natives,� Kelly said. �They displace native species.�

Kelly said that even if the groups identify invasive species that are harming the habitat or pushing out native species, they are often hard to remove.

�They�re so ingrained in the ecosystem now, to remove them you�d have to remove everything,� he said.

Teams will return in five or eight years to see how the ecosystem has changed, Kelly said.

Master Naturalist Scott Buckel, who volunteered with the program, said he joined the endeavor because he had seen the damage invasive species can do to an ecosystem. Buckel returned to Galveston nine months ago, after 30 years spent living off the island. He was involved in a similar survey in Australia.

�It gets to be a problem like this all over the world,� he said.