An official website of the United States government.

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
  1. Home
  2. Resources
  3. United States Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (US-RIIS)

United States Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (US-RIIS)

https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KFFTOD

DOI. United States Geological Survey.

Nov 4, 2022

Updated version 2.0, released November 4, 2022.

Introduced (non-native) species that becomes established may eventually become invasive, so tracking introduced species provides a baseline for effective modeling of species trends and interactions, geospatially and temporally.

The United States Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (US-RIIS) is comprised of three lists, one each for Alaska, Hawaii, and the conterminous United States. Each list includes introduced (non-native), established (reproducing) taxa that: are, or may become, invasive (harmful) in the locality; are not known to be harmful there; and/or have been used for biological control in the locality.

To be included in the US-RIIS, a taxon must be non-native everywhere in the locality and established (reproducing) anywhere in the locality. Native pest species are not included. The US-RIIS builds on a previous dataset, A Comprehensive List of Non-Native Species Established in Three Major Regions of the U.S.: Version 3.0 (Simpson et al., 2020). An Open-File Report 2018-1156, 15 p., related to the predecessor of the US-RIIS: https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181156.

Note: GBIF-US was formerly hosted at BISON.USGS.gov. The existing BISON website was taken down on December 17, 2021 and users are now redirected to Species observations for the United States and U.S. Territories via the new pilot implementation of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF-US) data portal.

View related resource: United States Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (US-RISS) Story Map