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So the long and short of it is that viable seeds are making it through invasive Burmese pythons' digestive tracts in the Florida Everglades, meaning that the pythons are acting as seed dispersers. Defenders of invasive species might answer that this means the pythons are just taking on the seed disperser role. However, there are two main ecological problems with that:
--Pythons can often reach places where the seeds' native dispersers do not or can not go, which alters the distribution of plant species, and potentially upsetting the balance of plant communities.
--What happens when the pythons have eaten all the native seed dispersers? They're certainly not going to continue spread the seeds around out of concern.
Burmese pythons are a prime example of how invasive species can have multiple negative impacts on ecosystems in which they're introduced. In some parts of the Everglades they have been the direct cause of a 99% decrease in small and medium mammal numbers. Now we're seeing how they may have cascading effects on plants as well.
