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Read more about the article Tackling Invasive Alien Species in Europe: the Top 20 Issues
Some of the invited speakers at the Freshwater Invasives: Networking for Strategy (FINS). Back row (left to right): Joe Caffrey (Inland Fisheries Ireland), Phil Hulme (Lincoln University, New Zealand), Olaf Weyl (SAIAB/CIB), Fergus O’Dowd (Minister of Fisheries Ireland), Hugh MacIsaac (University of Windsor, Canada), Anthony Ricciardi (McGill University, Canada). Front row: Toril Loennechen Moen (Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre), Jarle Steinkjer (Directorate for Nature Management, Norway), Frances Williams (CABI, Kenya), Niall Moore (Non-native Species Secretariat for Great Britain), Helen Roy (Biological Records Centre, UK).
2014 / News

Tackling Invasive Alien Species in Europe: the Top 20 Issues

Globally, Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are considered to be one of the major threats to native biodiversity. In Europe, there are about 12,000 alien species, 11% of which are invasive, causing environmental, economic and social damage. Given Global trends, it is reasonable to expect that the rate of biological invasions into Europe will increase in the coming years.

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10 June 2014
Read more about the article New alien species hiding in our harbours
A diver surfaces to pass a sample to C·I·B researchers (Photo credit: Dr T Robinson)
2014 / News

New alien species hiding in our harbours

Marine alien species have not been as well studied in South Africa as their terrestrial counterparts. However, recent research by C·I·B researchers has shed some light on the occurrence of marine alien species in Western Cape harbours.

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27 May 2014
Read more about the article Volcanic lava flow fuels tree invasion on La Réunion
Casuarina equisetifolia seedling emerging from a new lava substrate of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano.
2014 / News

Volcanic lava flow fuels tree invasion on La Réunion

The volcanic island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean is the least disrupted of the biodiversity-rich islands of the Mascarene archipelago, with around 30% of the native vegetation still intact. She-oak or ironwood (Casuarina equisetifolia), a fast-growing tree native to Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, the Philippines, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia, was introduced to La Réunion in 1738, mainly for use as firewood.

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20 May 2014
Read more about the article Defining the impact of alien species
The sImpact working group in Leipzig, Germany, in July 2013
2014 / News

Defining the impact of alien species

All alien species cause changes to the ecosystems to which they are introduced. Such impacts are of many types - some are dramatic and obvious and can easily be classified as desirable or undesirable. However, for the vast majority of alien species, no information on impact is available. This greatly complicates the task of objectively assigning priority to management.

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13 May 2014
Read more about the article Multi-scale predictive maps can help us manage tree invaders
Haylee Kaplan collecting soil core samples along a plantation road
2014 / News

Multi-scale predictive maps can help us manage tree invaders

Eradication of invasive alien plants requires that all populations of the plants have been found and every plant removed. This entails intensive searching, which often comes at a great expense. Maps that show where species are likely to occur are useful for guiding searches, and may reduce the costs and increase the success of eradication operations. Such maps are based on models that explore the links between plant distributions and climatic factors in order to predict where the plants might occur.

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6 May 2014