Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework

Shackleton, Ross T.; Bertzky, Bastian; Wood, Louisa E.; Bunbury, Nancy; Jäger, Heinke; Merm, Remco van; Sevilla, Christian; Smith, Kevin G.; Wilson, John R.; Witt, Arne; Richardson, David M.

doi:10.1007/s10531-020-02026-1

Cited by 24 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…PAs serve as the backbone of global conservation and biological invasions are a key driver of change in PAs (Foxcroft et al 2017a;Shackleton et al 2020a, b). Our study shows that many IAS have already caused significant management and damage costs across all environments and continents.…”

Section: Perspectives On Underestimated Costsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Surprisingly high economic costs of biological invasions in protected areas

et al. 2022

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Biological invasions are one of the main threats to biodiversity within protected areas (PAs) worldwide. Meanwhile, the resilience of PAs to invasions remains largely unknown. Consequently, providing a better understanding of how they are impacted by invasions is critical for informing policy responses and optimally allocating resources to prevention and control strategies. Here we use the InvaCost database to address this gap from three perspectives: (i) characterizing the total reported costs of invasive alien species (IAS) in PAs; (ii) comparing mean observed costs of IAS in PAs and non-PAs; and (iii) evaluating factors affecting mean observed costs of IAS in PAs. Our results first show that, overall, the reported economic costs of IAS in PAs amounted to US$ 22.24 billion between 1975 and 2020, of which US$ 930.61 million were observed costs (already incurred) and US$ 21.31 billion were potential costs (extrapolated or predicted). Expectedly, most of the observed costs were reported for management (73%) but damages were still much higher than expected for PAs (24%); in addition, the vast majority of management costs were reported for reactive, post-invasion actions (84% of management costs, focused on eradication and control). Second, differences between costs in PAs and non-PAs varied among continents and environments. We found significantly higher IAS costs in terrestrial PA environments compared to non-PAs, while regionally, Europe incurred higher costs in PAs and Africa and Temperate Asia incurred higher costs in non-PAs. Third, characterization of drivers of IAS costs within PAs showed an effect of environments (higher costs in terrestrial environments), continents (higher in Africa and South America), taxa (higher in invertebrates and vertebrates than plants) and Human Development Index (higher in more developed countries). Globally, our findings indicate that, counterintuitively, PAs are subject to very high costs from biological invasions. This highlights the need for more resources to be invested in the management of IAS to achieve the role of PAs in ensuring the long term conservation of nature. Accordingly, more spatially-balanced and integrative studies involving both scientists and stakeholders are required.

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Section: Perspectives On Underestimated Costsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Surprisingly high economic costs of biological invasions in protected areas

et al. 2022

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“…On subtidal reefs in northwestern Washington state (the United States) ( 9 ), western Iberian Peninsula in Spain ( 45 ), and San José Gulf in Argentina ( 46 ), despite restriction of human disturbance and access, PAs became highly invaded by exotic seaweeds. Exotic species invasions are indeed becoming increasingly common in terrestrial and marine PAs globally ( 6 , 47 ), necessitating assessment and management of their impacts on PAs worldwide, especially for those with strict biodiversity conservation objectives (International Union for Conservation of Nature PA categories Ia and Ib) ( 6 , 7 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although exotic species have been reported in PAs globally ( 6 , 7 ) and been increasingly found to perform equally well or better in PAs than in non-PAs ( 6 , 8 , 9 ), their impacts on the performance of PAs in saving native species and ecosystems remain poorly understood. Existing assessments have focused on the abundance and richness of exotic species and their direct impacts, often at small spatiotemporal scales (e.g., competitive replacement at plot scales over 1 or a few years) ( 6 , 8 , 9 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An invasive species erodes the performance of coastal wetland protected areas

Ren

Chen

et al. 2021

Sci. Adv.

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The world has increasingly relied on protected areas (PAs) to rescue highly valued ecosystems from human activities, but whether PAs will fare well with bioinvasions remains unknown. By analyzing three decades of seven of the largest coastal PAs in China, including World Natural Heritage and/or Wetlands of International Importance sites, we show that, although PAs are achieving success in rescuing iconic wetlands and critical shorebird habitats from once widespread reclamation, this success is counteracted by escalating plant invasions. Plant invasions were not only more extensive in PAs than non-PA controls but also undermined PA performance by, without human intervention, irreversibly replacing expansive native wetlands (primarily mudflats) and precluding successional formation of new native marshes. Exotic species are invading PAs globally. This study across large spatiotemporal scales highlights that the consequences of bioinvasions for humanity's major conservation tool may be more profound, far reaching, and critical for management than currently recognized.

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“…For this factor it is important to consider and analyze the invasion pathways and vectors which may reintroduce the unwanted species after successful eradication or reinforce the population being eradicated ( e.g. , Faulkner et al, 2020 ; Shackleton et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Survey Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Unified system describing factors related to the eradication of an alien plant species

Galera

Rudak

Wódkiewicz

2022

PeerJ

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Background In the field of biological invasions science, a problem of many overlapping terms arose among eradication assessment frameworks. Additionally there is a need to construct a universally applicable eradication evaluation system. To unify the terminology and propose an eradication feasibility assessment scale we created the Unified System for assessing Eradication Feasibility (USEF) as a complex tool of factors for the analysis of eradications of alien (both invasive and candidate) plant species. It compiles 24 factors related to eradication success probability reported earlier in the literature and arranges them in a hierarchical system (context/group/factor/component) with a possibility to score their influence on eradication success. Methodology After a literature survey we analyzed, rearranged and defined each factor giving it an intuitive name along with the list of its synonyms and similar and/or related terms from the literature. Each factor influencing eradication feasibility is ascribed into one of four groups depending on the context that best matches the factor: location context (size and location of infestation, ease of access), species context (fitness and fecundity, detectability), human context (knowledge, cognition and resources to act) and reinvasion context (invasion pathways). We also devised a simple ordinal scale to assess each factor’s influence on eradication feasibility. Conclusions The system may be used to report and analyze eradication campaign data in order to (i) prioritize alien species for eradication, (ii) create the strategy for controlling invasive plants, (iii) compare efficiency of different eradication actions, (iv) find gaps in knowledge disabling a sound eradication campaign assessment. The main advantage of using our system is unification of reporting eradication experience data used by researchers performing different eradication actions in different systems.

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Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework

Cited by 24 publications

References 82 publications

Surprisingly high economic costs of biological invasions in protected areas

Surprisingly high economic costs of biological invasions in protected areas

An invasive species erodes the performance of coastal wetland protected areas

Unified system describing factors related to the eradication of an alien plant species

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