In a world of international shipping, plane travel, criss-crossing railroad tracks, and roads, invasive species have become par for the course. In any ecosystem, you're likely to find a number of species that have immigrated from elsewhere; often with detrimental effects to the native population.

Invasivore, a group of people taking advantage of this invasion, promotes the consumption of invasive species as a means of controlling those populations and essentially turning proverbial lemons into delicious lemonade.

From prehistoric times, humans have had an amazing track-record of severely reducing the populations of species we eat. Indeed, it seems that much of the time we can’t stop ourselves. The folks at Invasivore believe we can tap that hunger to reduce the impacts of harmful invasive species.

The mission at Invasivore is to be a one-stop guide for devouring

Invasive Species

, those organisms which have been moved around the world, damaging their new surroundings. Think of it as reasonable revenge for the harm these species cause. The word “invasivore” comes from combining “

Invasi

ve Species” with the latin for “devour” as in “carni

vore

”. Thus invasivore = one who eats invasive species.

Over at the group's website, you can peruse recipes for preparing invasive species (

ahem,

burdock

), as well as exposition and commentary on related topics such as species’ profiles, histories and cultural significance, harvesting tips, interviews with Invasivores-at-large, and summaries of relevant scientific research.

Material for the Invasivore project is based upon work supported by the

National Science Foundation

under Grant # NSF-DGE-0504495 to the

GLOBES

interdisciplinary training program at the

University of Notre Dame