Harmonia + and Pandora +: risk screening tools for potentially invasive plants, animals and their pathogens

Abstract

Given the large number of alien species that may potentially develop into invasives, there is a clear need for robust schemes that allow to screen species for such risks. The Harmonia ? framework presented here brings together 30 questions that refer to distinct components of invasion. Together, they cover the stages of introduction, establishment, spread, and multiple kinds of impacts, viz. referring to the health of the environment (including wild species), cultivated plants, domesticated animals and man. In a complete assessment, input is provided by choosing among predefined ordinal answers and by supplementing these with textual clarification. Uncertainty is covered by indicating levels of confidence. By converting answers into scores, which are then condensed into summary statistics, Harmonia ? allows for quantitative output on stage-specific and general risks. Test assessments on five species emerging in Belgium showed the perceived environmental risks of Procambarus clarkii to be highest (0.72), and that of Threskiornis aethiopicus to be lowest (0.13). Given the considerable parallels that exist between invasive alien species and emerging infectious diseases, we additionally created Pandora, which is a risk analysis scheme for pathogens and parasites. It consists of 13 key questions and has the same structure as Harmonia ? . Since diseases play a paramount role in biological invasions, results of Pandora assessments may feed into Harmonia ? through a slightly adapted, hostspecific version named Pandora ? . Harmonia ? , Pandora and Pandora ? may be used both for prioritization purposes and for underpinning detailed risk analyses, and can be consulted online through http://ias. biodiversity.be.

Assessing the assessments: evaluation of four impact assessment protocols for invasive alien species

“…It considers 13 different environmental impact mechanisms, and the five levels of impacts are aligned and consistent across mechanisms. Harmonia + is designed to cover all types of IAS impacts in a unified framework aiming to be maximally compliant with international law (D'hondt et al ., ). It presents 18 questions on impacts, including environmental impacts, plant, animal and human health impacts, as well as impacts on infrastructure.…”

Developing a framework of minimum standards for the risk assessment of alien species

“…The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Mastrandrea, Heller, Root, & Schneider, ) provides a framework for a consistent approach to the treatment of uncertainties whereby confidence is considered as a function of evidence and agreement. Evidence relates to the type, amount, quality and consistency of the data (D'hondt et al., ).…”

Beyond protocols: improving the reliability of expert-based risk analysis underpinning invasive species policies

“…For example, several protocols do provide explicit guidance and/or values (e.g. low/medium/high levels of confidence) for scoring uncertainty on the assessor's answers (Baker et al 2008;Blackburn et al 2014;D'hondt et al 2015). However, they do not require the assessor to justify their confidence scores.…”

“…To do this, a wealth of qualitative and semi-quantitative protocols have emerged in recent years (e.g. Baker et al 2008;Blackburn et al 2014;Bomford 2008;D'hondt et al 2015;Essl et al 2011; EFSA Panel on Plant Health 2011; Kenis et al 2012;Nentwig et al 2010;Sandvik et al 2013). These schemes range from classification systems to more elaborate scoring systems and are widely used in IAS management.…”