A prioritised list of invasive alien species to assist the effective implementation of EU legislation

Abstract

Abstract1. Effective prevention and control of invasive species generally relies on a comprehensive, coherent and representative list of species that enables resources to be used optimally. European Union (EU) Regulation 1143/2014 on invasive alien species (IAS) aims to control or eradicate priority species, and to manage pathways to prevent the introduction and establishment of new IAS; it applies to species considered of Union concern and subject to formal risk assessment. So far, 49 species have been listed but the criteria for selecting species for risk assessment have not been disclosed and were probably unsystematic.2. We developed a simple method to systematically rank IAS according to their maximum potential threat to biodiversity in the EU. We identified 1,323 species as potential candidates for listing, and evaluated them against their invasion stages and reported impacts, using information from databases and scientific literature. 4. Policy implications. We propose a systematic, proactive approach to selecting and prioritising IAS for risk assessment to assist European Union policy implementation.We assess an unprecedented number of species with potential to harm EU This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

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