Have impacts, will travel - A database of invasive plants from around the world
Original research by members of the RISCC leadership team can help the plant lovers among us to identify species that might be invasive.
Written by Bethany Bradley, edited by Abigail Guinan
Summary
Knowing that an introduced species is invasive elsewhere is an important factor for proactively identifying risk of invasion in a new range, particularly as climate change alters the ranges of introduced species. Lots of lists of invasive and regulated plants exist and have been compiled by various states, countries, and NGOs. But, these lists use different methods and are hard to find, making them difficult to use as a single go to source of invasive plants in the world. Laginhas & Bradley (2022) compiled a database of invasive plants globally from 5,893 scientific papers (retrieved from Web of Science using a keyword search for invasi* plant) published through 2020. Papers included single-species studies, multi-species studies, and floristic surveys focused on identifying invasive plants. The database includes both records where the species is explicitly termed invasive or described as invasive (non-native species spreading and/or having ecological impacts). The database identifies a total of 2,981 resolved taxa, including 2,842 species, 96 subspecies, 29 varieties, and 41 hybrids. Wondering about whether a new species you’ve been seeing could become invasive? This list is a good place to start.
Take home points
The full database of global invasive plants is available here. These plants are recognized in the scientific literature as being invasive.
Management implications
Plants that are identified as invasive in one region are often considered to have high risk of becoming invasive in other regions. So, if you’re evaluating risk from a newly introduced species, this list could help determine whether the species or its close relatives (species of the same genus) are known to be invasive.
Use this list plus additional information from CABI (https://www.cabi.org/isc/) to proactively identify potentially invasive plants.
Keywords
Invasive plant, risk assessment, proactive management