Home▸Ecology & Conservation Biology▸Invasive Species: Early vs Delayed Response

Invasive Species: Early vs Delayed Response

Interactive 3D simulation of invasive species eradication: an introduced population grows exponentially from a single point at a lake shore. Trigger removal effort early while the population is small, or delay it, and watch whether the same fixed removal rate can eradicate the population or is permanently outpaced by exponential growth.

Ecology & Conservation Biology3DModerate60 FPS💧 Water

An invasive species introduced to a new ecosystem has no natural predators or competitors there, so its population grows exponentially, unconstrained. This simulation lets you introduce a population at a single point on a lake shore and choose exactly when — and how hard — to respond. The underlying model is exact: whether a fixed removal rate can drive the population to zero depends only on whether it was still below the break-even population E/r at the moment removal began. Try the same removal rate with a short delay and a long one to see how the eradication outcome and its cumulative cost diverge.

⚙ Under the hood

Introduce an invasive species at a lake shore and choose when to start removal. The population grows exponentially until checked; the same fixed removal rate eradicates it completely if triggered early, but only slows an uncontrollable population if delayed — watch the break-even threshold and cumulative cost curve as a function of response delay.

invasive specieseradication thresholdexponential growthrapid responsepopulation dynamics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install