National Public Screening Tool for Invasive and Non-native Aquatic Species Data

Identifying the leading edge of a biological invasion can be difficult. Many management and research entities have biological samples or surveys that may unknowingly contain data on nonindigenous species. The new Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) Database automated online tool “SEINeD” (Screen and Evaluate Invasive and Non-native Data) will allow a user to search for these nonindigenous occurrences at a push of a button. This new tool will enable stakeholders to upload a biological dataset of fishes, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, or aquatic plants collected anywhere in a U.S. State or Territory and screen that data for non-native aquatic species occurrences. In addition to checking for the nativity of species in the dataset, the tool will also review the spatial accuracy with the potential to flag erroneous GPS coordinates. The SEINeD tool and all required information about its use can be found on the NAS website (nas.er.usgs.gov).

Principal Investigator : Wesley M Daniel
Co-Investigator : Matthew E Neilson, Ian A Pfingsten, Peter M Ruhl
Cooperator/Partner : Gary Whelan

Image caption: Example map of species data divided into native and non-native occurrences after being processed by the SEINeD tool.