Developing a list of invasive alien species likely to threaten biodiversity and ecosystems in the European Union

Helen E. Roy (1) , Sven Bacher (2) , Franz Essl (3, 4) , Tim Adriaens (5) , David C. Aldridge (6) , John D. D. Bishop (7) , Tim M. Blackburn (8, 9) , Etienne Branquart (10) , Juliet Brodie (11) , Carles Carboneras (12) , Elizabeth J. Cottier-Cook (13) , Gordon H. Copp (14, 15) , Hannah J. Dean (1) , Jorgen Eilenberg (16) , Belinda Gallardo (17) , Mariana Garcia (18) , Emili García-Berthou (19) , Piero Genovesi (20, 18, 21) , Philip E. Hulme (22) , Marc Kenis (23) , Francis Kerckhof (24) , Marianne Kettunen (25) , Dan Minchin (26) , Wolfgang Nentwig (27) , Ana Nieto (18) , Jan Pergl (28) , Oliver L. Pescott (1) , Jodey M. Peyton (1) , Cristina Preda (29) , Alain Roques (30) , Steph L. Rorke (1) , Riccardo Scalera (18) , Stefan Schindler (3) , Karsten Schonrogge (1) , Jack Sewell (7) , Wojciech Solarz (31) , Alan J. A. Stewart (32) , Elena Tricarico (33) , Sonia Vanderhoeven (34) , Gerard van Der Velde (35, 36, 37) , Montserrat Vilà (38) , Christine A. Wood (7) , Argyro Zenetos (39) , Wolfgang Rabitsch (3)

1 NERC - Natural Environment Research Council
2 UNIFR - Université de Fribourg = University of Fribourg
3 Umweltbundesamt GmbH = Environment Agency Austria
4 University of Vienna [Vienna]
5 INBO - Research Institute for Nature and Forest
6 Department of Zoology
7 Marine Biological Association
8 UCL - University College of London [London]
9 Institute of Zoology
10 Service Public de Wallonie
11 Natural History Museum
12 The Lodge
13 SAMS - Scottish Association for Marine Science
14 CEFAS - Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
15 BU - Bournemouth University [Poole]
16 Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences
17 CSIC - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas [España] = Spanish National Research Council [Spain]
18 Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG)
19 UdG - Universitat de Girona
20 ISPRA - National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research
21 IUCN SSC - IUCN Species Survival Commission
22 Bio-Protection Research Centre
23 CABI Europe Switzerland
24 RBINS - Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
25 Institute for European Environmental Policy
26 Marine Organism Investigations
27 UNIBE - Universität Bern / University of Bern
28 Institute of Botany
29 Ovidius University of Constanta
30 URZF - Unité de recherche Zoologie Forestière
31 Institute of Nature Conservation
32 University of Sussex
33 UniFI - Università degli Studi di Firenze = University of Florence = Université de Florence
34 Belgian Biodiversity Platform
35 Institute for Water and Wetland Research
36 Naturalis Biodiversity Center [Leiden]
37 Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Exotic Species
38 EBD - Estación Biológica de Doñana
39 HCMR - Hellenic Centre for Marine Research

The European Union (EU) has recently published its first list of invasive alien species (IAS) of EU concern to which current legislation must apply. The list comprises species known to pose great threats to biodiversity and needs to be maintained and updated. Horizon scanning is seen as critical to identify the most threatening potential IAS that do not yet occur in Europe to be subsequently risk assessed for future listing. Accordingly, we present a systematic consensus horizon scanning procedure to derive a ranked list of potential IAS likely to arrive, establish, spread and have an impact on biodiversity in the region over the next decade. The approach is unique in the continental scale examined, the breadth of taxonomic groups and environments considered, and the methods and data sources used. International experts were brought together to address five broad thematic groups of potential IAS. For each thematic group the experts first independently assembled lists of potential IAS not yet established in the EU but potentially threatening biodiversity if introduced. Experts were asked to score the species within their thematic group for their separate likelihoods of i) arrival, ii) establishment, iii) spread, and iv) magnitude of the potential negative impact on biodiversity within the EU. Experts then convened for a 2-day workshop applying consensus methods to compile a ranked list of potential IAS. From an initial working list of 329 species, a list of 66 species not yet established in the EU that were considered to be very high (8 species), high (40 species) or medium (18 species) risk species was derived. Here, we present these species highlighting the potential negative impacts and the most likely biogeographic regions to be affected by these potential IAS.

Mots clés: consensus approach; environmental policy; impacts; introductions; prioritization; risk assessment

Mots clés: biological invasions

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Milieux et Changements globaux

Helen E. Roy, Sven Bacher, Franz Essl, Tim Adriaens, David C. Aldridge, et al.. Developing a list of invasive alien species likely to threaten biodiversity and ecosystems in the European Union. Global Change Biology, 2019, 25 (3), pp.1032 - 1048. ⟨10.1111/gcb.14527⟩. ⟨hal-02627982⟩