The challenge of managing threatened invasive species at a continental scale

Abstract

The European Union's (EU) environmental legislation establishes common measures to prevent the entry and spread of invasive non‐native species and to minimize their impacts. However, species that are native to at least 1 member state but non‐native and potentially invasive in others (NPIS) are in limbo because they are neither legally regulated at the EU level nor in most member states. We used the Communication and Information Resource Centre for Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (CIRCABC) raw data on NPISs (317 taxa) to analyze their distribution across the EU and identify which biogeographical regions are the main sources of invasions. We additionally evaluated the conservation challenge posed by NPISs that are threatened in within their native ranges. We performed a pairwise analysis summarizing the number of species that are native to a given member state but non‐native to another and vice versa. While distribution patterns of NPISs varied across taxa groups, overall, southern and central EU countries were both donors and recipients of NPISs. Eastern countries were mainly a source, and western and northern countries mostly received NPISs . Around 27 % of NPISs were threatened in some of their EU native ranges, which is a challenge for conservation and management because some of them have serious negative effects on European biodiversity, but hitherto remain outside the scope of the EU regulation of invasive non‐native species. This highlights an unresolved paradox because efforts to manage species as invasive conflict with efforts to protect them as threatened within the same territory.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Taming the terminological tempest in invasion science

“…European Union Regulation 1143/2014) (Vilizzi et al ., 2022 b ), can generate inconsistent terminology among European countries (Haubrock et al ., 2024). This is because distributions of non‐native species frequently span many countries, while other species can be native to one part of a country and non‐native to another (Baquero et al ., 2023; Nelufule et al ., 2023), exhibiting negative impacts only in the introduced parts of its range (Carey et al ., 2012). This can lead to regional variation in approaches, terminology, and priorities within the same country (Vitule et al ., 2019).…”

Taming the terminological tempest in invasion science

“…European Union Regulation 1143/2014) (Vilizzi et al, 2022b), can generate inconsistent terminology among European countries (Haubrock et al, 2024). This is because distributions of nonnative species frequently span many countries, while other species can be native to one part of a country and non-native to another (Baquero et al, 2023;Nelufule et al, 2023), exhibiting negative impacts only in the introduced parts of its range (Carey et al, 2012). This can lead to regional variation in approaches, terminology, and priorities within the same country (Vitule et al, 2019).…”

A multi-taxa assessment of aquatic non-indigenous species introduced into Iberian freshwater and transitional waters

“…This situation may lead to a complex conservation paradox when some aquatic species are native and even threatened in certain EU Member States but they have been introduced and become invasive in others (Marchetti and Engstrom 2016). Hence, national-level regulation instruments must be properly designed and implemented to deal with NIS that are particularly harmful to a given region and address these inherent constraints derived from managing NIS at European scale (Baquero et al 2023). Consequently, effective management will require that national NIS catalogues are complemented to include all taxa that are considered a priority for management (Angulo et al 2021).…”