Scanning the horizon for invasive plant threats to Florida, USA

Abstract

Early detection and eradication of invasive plants are more cost-effective than managing well-established invasive plant populations and their impacts. However, there is high uncertainty around which taxa are likely to become invasive in a given area. Horizon scanning, which pairs rapid risk assessment with consensus building among experts, can help identify invasion threats. We performed a horizon scan of potential invasive plant threats to Florida, USA—a state with a high influx of introduced species, conditions that are favorable for plant establishment, and a history of negative impacts from invasive plants. We began with a list of 2128 non-native plant species and subspecies that are crop pests or invasive somewhere in the world and used publicly available data to prioritize 100 taxa for rapid risk assessment. We derived overall invasion risk scores by evaluating the likelihood and certainty of each of the 100 taxa arriving, establishing, and having an impact in Florida. Through the rapid risk assessments and a consensus-building discussion, we identified six plant taxa with high overall risk scores ranging from 75 to 100 out of a possible 125. The six taxa are globally distributed, easily transported to new areas, found in regions with climates similar to Florida’s, and can impact native plant communities, human health, or agriculture. We recommend more thorough risk assessments for each of these six species and, if appropriate, policy and management actions to limit invasive plant introduction and establishment in Florida.

Scanning the horizon for invasive plant threats using a data-driven approach

“…The databases and code we used are publicly available (Suppl. material 1, Kendig et al 2022) and could be used for other horizon scans of potential invasive plants. Second, the rapid risk assessments and peer reviews led to enough consensus among experts that our final rankings relied entirely on scores from that process (e.g., in contrast to Roy et al 2014;Lucy et al 2020).…”

Assessment of the use of CABI’s decision support tools for biosecurity – Pest Risk Analysis Tool and Horizon Scanning Tool

“…Target users include but are not limited to risk assessors, plant protection officers, quarantine officers, protected-area managers and researchers. Since its launch, the tool has been widely used in different settings to develop lists of potential invasive alien plant pests for specific geographic areas (Boice, 2021;Kendig et al, 2021;Kenis et al, 2022; ).…”

“…The use, benefits and evolution of CABI's pest risk decision support tools have been documented (Coles, 2018;Doughty et al, 2019;Lowry et al, 2019;Boice, 2021). In addition, examples of how the tools are used are emerging in the literature (Kendig et al, 2021;Mulema et al, 2021;Kenis et al, 2022). However, studies documenting the consequences of use or courses of action following the user of the tools, both immediate and long term, are scarce or unavailable.…”