Corresponding author: Rafael Dudeque Zenni ( rafael.zenni@ufla.br ) Academic editor: Franz Essl
© 2021 José Ricardo Pires Adelino, Gustavo Heringer, Christophe Diagne, Franck Courchamp, Lucas Del Bianco Faria, Rafael Dudeque Zenni.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Adelino JRP, Heringer G, Diagne C, Courchamp F, Faria LDB, Zenni RD (2021) The economic costs of biological invasions in Brazil: a first assessment. In: Zenni RD, McDermott S, García-Berthou E, Essl F (Eds) The economic costs of biological invasions around the world. NeoBiota 67: 349-374. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.67.59185
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Biological invasions are one of the leading causes of global environmental change and their impacts can affect biodiversity, ecosystem services, human health and the economy. Yet, the understanding on the impacts of invasive alien species is still limited and mostly related to alien species outbreaks and losses in agricultural yield, followed by the understanding of the ecological impacts on natural systems. Notably, the economic impacts of biological invasions have rarely been quantified. Brazil has at least 1214 known alien species from which 460 are recognized as invasive alien species. Still, there are no comprehensive estimates of the cost of their impact and management. Here, we aimed at filling this gap by providing a comprehensive estimate of the economic cost of biological invasions in Brazil. In order to quantify these costs for species, ecosystems and human well-being we used the InvaCost database which is the first global compilation of the economic costs of biological invasions. We found that Brazil reportedly spent a minimum of USD 105.53 billions over 35 years (1984–2019), with an average spent of USD 3.02 (± 9.8) billions per year. Furthermore, USD 104.33 billion were due to damages and losses caused by invaders, whereas only USD 1.19 billion were invested in their management (prevention, control or eradication). We also found that recorded costs were unevenly distributed across ecosystems, and socio-economic sectors, and were rarely evaluated and published. We found that the economic costs with losses and damages were substantially greater than those used for prevention, control or eradication of IAS. Since our data show costs reported in Brazil for only 16 invasive alien species, our estimates are likely a conservative minimum of the actual economic costs of biological invasions in Brazil. Taken together, they indicate that invasive alien species are an important cause of economic losses and that Brazil has mostly opted for paying for the damage incurred by biological invasions rather than investing in preventing them from happening.
Os impactos resultantes da introdução de espécies exóticas e invasoras (t.c.p. invasão biológica) é um dos principais fatores associados as mudanças ambientais em escala global, cujos impactos afetam direta e indiretamente a biodiversidade, os serviços ecossistêmicos, o bem estar e a saúde humana, e a economia. Contudo, muito do conhecimento sobre os impactos das espécies exóticas e invasoras ainda é limitado aos prejuízos observados em áreas de cultivo e plantações, negligenciando o impacto de surtos de espécies exóticas em sistemas ecológicos e naturais. Somado a isso, é notável o desconhecimento dos impactos econômicos da invasão biológica que são raramente quantificados e reportados. No Brasil estima-se a ocorrência de ao menos 1214 espécies exóticas estabelecidas das quais 460 são reconhecidas como espécies invasoras. Ainda assim, as estimativas dos custos relacionados aos respectivos impactos por prejuízos e por manejo de espécies exóticas e invasoras são desconhecidos. Neste estudo, pretendemos contribuir para preencher esta lacuna sumarizando os custos econômicos da invasão biológica para o Brasil. Para quantificar os custos econômicos da invasão biológica usamos informações em nível de espécie, ecossistemas, bem estar e saúde humana, e setores socio-econômicos disponíveis no primeiro levantamento de dados global para custos econômicos da invasão biológica, InvaCost. Encontramos que os custos reportados para o Brasil apresentam valor mínimo de USD 105,3 bilhões ao longo dos últimos 35 anos (1984–2019), com custo médio de USD 3,02 (± 9,8) bilhões ao ano. Detectamos que USD 104,33 bilhões estão relacionados a prejuízos (danos e perdas) causados por espécies invasoras, enquanto USD 1,9 bilhões foram investidos em ações preventivas como o de manejo, controle ou erradicação de espécies. Além disso, nossos resultados apontam para uma significativa disparidade dos custos econômicos entre os diferentes setores analisados (ecológicos, sociais e econômicos) reforçando a escassez de dados econômicos reportados e ou disponíveis para análise. Com os dados disponiveis observamos que os custos econômicos dos prejuízos (perdas e danos) foram mais representativos do que os custos de prevenção, controle e erradicação de espécies exóticas e invasoras. Uma vez que nossos dados de custo disponíveis para o Brasil estão associados apenas à presença de 16 espécies invasoras, certamente nossos resultados representam uma estimativa conservadora que reflete o valor mínimo esperado para os custos atuais dos impactos econômicos referente a presença de espécies exótico invasoras para o Brasil. Em conjunto, providenciamos a primeira análise de custos econômicos baseado em evidências que indicam que o custo com espécies exótico invasoras no país está associado à reversão dos prejuízos acometidos pela invasão biológica ao invés do incentivo em investimento para a prevenção de danos. Portanto, concluímos que espécies exótico invasoras são uma importante fonte do prejuízo econômico ao país.
Biological invasions, economic cost, economic damage, Invasive species impact, InvaCost database, invasive alien species, Invasion management
The pervasive impacts of invasive alien species (IAS hereafter) are complex and multifaceted, since IAS are responsible for substantial damages in social, ecological, and human health worldwide (
Despite the growing knowledge in IAS distribution patterns and drivers (e.g.,
The economic cost of biological invasions tends to incur even when the ecological or human health impacts decrease. Indeed, managing invasions to reduce their ecological impact also produces an economic impact by consuming monetary and human resources. However, different sectors of activity differ in their required costs for managing IAS. In Brazil, IAS can rapidly damage crops fields and directly impact a wide range of commodities imposing billions of Reais (R$) in cost distributed over damage repair, species invasion mitigation, and prevention strategies (
Despite the comprehensive impacts generated by IAS, the economic costs of biological invasions are rarely assessed (
Here, we investigated the economic costs associated with the presence of IAS in Brazil. For the purpose of this study, invasive alien species are any non-native species that generate economic impact on ecological, societal or environmental sectors of activity. Using studies that report the economic impact of alien species we evaluated the reported expenses based on IAS identities, intervention classes and costs in environmental and societal sectors. Furthermore, by using InvaCost, a global dataset of the economic costs of invasive species (
The species list used in this study was obtained from the InvaCost database (
From the InvaCost database, we selected all entries referring to Brazil (N = 54) by using the ‘Official country’ column of the dataset and used the ‘expandYearlyCosts’ function of the R package invacost (
To estimate the total economic cost of IAS, we summed up all annual costs considering the ecological and societal sectors of activity for which information was available (i.e., without considering management or damage repair as distinct classes). The former is represented by the costs directly linked with species information on terrestrial, aquatic or both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (i.e., there is no marine species in the Brazil dataset). For the societal costs we used the market sector and the type of cost classes of reported economic costs. The market sector is a categorical variable that links the economic costs in the following six business classes: agriculture, stakeholders or decision makers, environment, forestry, health, and public and social welfare (for definition of each market sector see Table
Description of market sectors impacted by IAS in Brazil. Descriptions follow the classification used in the InvaCost database (
Market sector | Description |
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Agriculture | Food and other useful products produced by human activities (i.e., plant resources, crop growing, livestock breeding, land management). |
Stakeholders or decision makers | Governmental services or official organizations that allocate efforts and resources for the management, control, and eradication of IAS. |
Environment | Impacts impose by IAS on natural resources, ecological processes or ecosystem services. |
Forestry | Impacts impose by IAS on forest-based activities and services (i.e., timber production, industries). |
Health | Directly or indirectly impact imposed by IAS that negatively affect human well-being or and the sanitary state of people (i.e., vector control, medical care and other derived damage on human productivity). |
Public and social welfare | Directly or indirectly impact imposed by IAS on activities, goods or services that contribute to the human well-being and safety in our societies, including local infrastructures (e.g. electric system), quality of life (e.g. income, recreational activities), personal goods (e.g. private properties, lands), public services (e.g. transports, water regulation), and market activities (e.g. tourism, trade). |
Type of cost | Description |
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Control | Costs used to control IAS population. |
Damage repair | Costs used to repair the damages associated with IAS on local infrastructures or other human activity that affect the quality of life, personal goods, public services and market activities. |
Damage loss | Costs used to repair the losses associated with IAS on food and other useful products produced by human activities. |
Eradication | Costs used on activities that act on IAS mitigation aimed towards complete removal of IAS (e.g., authorized hunting). |
Medical care | Costs used to medical care and other human well-being treatment (e.g., treatment of vector borne diseases). |
Prevention | Costs used in surveillance, monitoring and other activities that help to prevents the trade, transport and/or introduction of alien species. |
Research | Costs on theoretical (e.g., academic research on IAS), applied (e.g., evidence-based decisions plans) and technological (e.g., technological tools) knowledge that support strategies to reduce, control or mitigate the impacts imposed by IAS. |
In order to evaluate if the economic costs differed between costs used to repairing damage from costs used to IAS management, we used the impact year and the costs associated to create a new variable derived from the type of costs, here named of intervention group (“Type_2” in InvaCost database). The latter is a categorical variable where the seven types of cost classes explained above were reorganized into the following group of intervention: damage, management, and mixed (Suppl. material
We found reports of economic costs for 16 IAS (Table
Economic costs incurred by the 16 invasive alien species in Brazil. Numbers above the bars indicate the abbreviated cost in thousand (K), millions (M) and Billions (B) of US dollars. Orange indicates costs assigned to the terrestrial ecosystem. Blue (i.e., Limnoperna fortunei) indicates costs assigned to the aquatic ecosystem. Red (in Diverse/unspecified) indicates costs assigned to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
Invasive alien species economic impact associated with type of cost. The post hoc Tukey test for the differences shown statistically significance between damage and management type of cost (Estimate = 2.895 ± 0.78, t value = 3.692, p-value = 0.003). The differences between Damage to Mixed (Estimate = 2.608 ± 1.35, t value = 1.921, p-value = 0.102) and Management to Mixed (Estimate = -0.2864 ± 1.35, t value = -0.211, p-value = 0.835) were not statistically significant. Filled circles indicate species within each type of cost group. The costliest species are pointed out by roman numbers according to the top five costly species rank.
Profile table of invasive alien species. Species: indicates species name. Impact descriptor: A brief overview of the available information of the impacts imposed by each of 16 invasive alien species.
Species | Impact descriptor |
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Aedes spp. | Is the vector of the most important mosquito-borne disease that impacts human health in the world ( |
Artocarpus heterophyllus | Is associated with the Brazilian Atlantic forest (i.e., the most fragmented biomes of the country, see |
Bemisia tabaci | Is one of the most economically detrimental invasive alien species that damage a wide variety of horticultural, ornamental, and field crops worldwide ( |
Brachiaria eminii | Is one of the ecologically impactful invasive alien species that belongs to the group of invasive grasses ( |
Cinara spp. | Initially recorded in Brazil in 1996, the species specifically affect the pine plantations productivity which are composed by Pinus taeda and Pinus elliottii species ( |
Cydia pomonella | Is one of the most economically detrimental apple pests in the world ( |
Drosophila suzukii | Reported by the first time in 2013 in Brazil’s southern provinces ( |
Eragrostis plana | The species impacts more than one million hectares in Brazil’s southern grasslands ( |
Helicoverpa armigera/Tuta absoluta | Are economically impactful invasive alien species that damage a wide variety of field crops worldwide including tomatoes. In Brazil, its economic impact is associated with crop damages ( |
Limnoperna fortunei | Is one of the economically impactful invasive alien species that damage ecological, economical and human wellbeing worldwide ( |
Panicum maximum | This is an invasive alien species that belongs to the group of invasive grasses. Its ecological impact is associated with the overconsumption of soil nitrogen ( |
Pinus spp. | The species are one of the most common alien species used in forest plantations and management. In Brazil, its ecological and economic impacts are associated with negative effects in the native community ( |
Rhinella marina | Impacts and costs with this species are associated with biodiversity damage and eradication control. However, information of its impact in Brazil seems to be scarce ( |
Salvator merianae | Invasive in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago the species is considered a threat to the native community species by hosting, transporting, and spreading parasites to new regions ( |
Sirex noctilio | Is one of the most relevant threats to plantation forestry in South America and its impact is mainly associated with disease outbreaks in both natural and planted forests resulting in high levels of tree mortality ( |
Sus scrofa | Is one of the largest and most widespread invasive alien species in Brazil and it is responsible for several damages in vegetation surface, herbivory, rooting, soil overturning and crop fields damage ( |
In respect to ecosystem type, 52.4% of the costs (USD 55.28 billion) were distributed across both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The costs reported exclusively for terrestrial ecosystems totaled USD 50.24 billion and had Aedes spp. as the costliest species. The costs reported exclusively for aquatic ecosystems totaled USD 9.97 million and were only due to expenses caused by L. fortunei. Considering both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, the class Insecta was over-represented, followed by Bivalvia and Liliopsida. The species Aedes spp., L. fortunei, B. eminii and E. plana were the costliest species in Brazil (Figure
The economic costs reported as damage contributed with 98.9% of the available cost information and was estimated at USD 104.33 billion, whereas management contributed with 1.13% of the total, reportedly costing USD 1.19 billion. Mixed costs represented less than 1%, at USD 7.7 million (see Suppl. material
Regarding the type of intervention, damage losses contributed 89.9% of the available cost estimation at USD 94.91 billion, followed by medical care with USD 9.29 billion and species control with USD 1.19 billion (Fig.
Here, we have provided the first detailed assessment of the economic costs of biological invasions in Brazil since the study of
The quantification and reporting of economic costs of biological invasions were not a common practice in Brazil. Also, part of the available reports lack in accuracy, as there were 55 entries (ca. 31%) classified as low reliability. For instance, despite the high relevance of freshwater ecosystems in Brazil and the harmful effects of invasive alien species in aquatic environments (Pelicice et al. 2013), there were economic costs estimated for only one aquatic invasive alien species – the Golden mussel (L. fortunei) which impacts hydropower plant systems (
Considering terrestrial ecosystems, we observed high costs by invasive insects (Fig.
Radar plot showing the frequency of invasive taxonomic classes (A) and invasive alien species (B) distributed across different ecosystem types. Overrepresented species were: Aedes spp. (N = 73), Limnoperna fortunei (N = 29), Brachiaria eminii (N = 13) and Eragrostis plana (N = 11). Species with intermediate representativeness were Pinus spp. (N = 9), Rhinella marina (N = 8), Bemisia tabaci (N=7) and Cydia pomonella (N=5). The remaining species were underrepresented (N < 5). The overrepresented taxonomic classes were Insecta (N =93), Bivalvia (N=29) and Liliopsida (N=24), whereas the remaining ones were underrepresented (N <10).
The association between the agriculture sector and economic costs incurred by invasive alien species is not surprising (
Clear information on prevention strategies for invasive alien species and costs were missing and indicate the necessity for a country-level integrated database of invasive alien species, management programs and research, such as indicated in the Brazil’s National Strategy for Invasive Alien Species – CONABIO Resolution 05/2019 – and its implementation plan (SBio/MMA Ordinance 3/2018; Resolution 05/2019). Indeed, 10 entries (USD 824.64 thousand) reported prevention as a type of cost in Brazil. Prevention strategies for IAS exist in Brazil but are currently limited and lack operational coordination (but see Brazil’s National Strategy for Invasive Alien Species – CONABIO Resolution 05/2019). This supports the notion that in Brazil, as well as in Central and South America in general (
Economical costs with invasive alien species partitioned over seven market sectors. Numbers above the bars indicate the abbreviated cost in thousand (K), millions (M) and Billions (B) in 2017 US dollars over a time span of 35 years.
Economical costs with invasive alien species partitioned over eight types of costs. Numbers above the bars indicate the abbreviated cost in thousand (K), millions (M) and Billions (B) in 2017 US dollars over a time span of 35 years.
In summary, here we have provided a first national estimate of the total economic cost of biological invasions in Brazil. The reported USD 105.53 billion of expenses in 35 years for 16 species is a conservative estimate of the total cost of biological invasions, as it only included direct and publicly available costs, which remain strikingly few. In addition to the clear biases in taxonomic groups, regions and activity sectors, some costs dissolved in broader actions, such as sanitary border control, ecosystem restoration efforts and environmental research were not estimated (Brancalion 2019). Costs of losses owing to biological invasions, such as ecosystem services degradation and yield reductions were also lacking from the literature. Brazil has at least 460 invasive alien species (
Heat map depicting the economic costs associated with species, market sectors and cost type. Each block indicates the cost incurred by each species over a specific market sector (in left) and cost type (in right). Gray blocks are associations with no available cost information and colorful blocks indicate the intensity of the economic cost incurred by each species. Low cost intensity (i.e. hundreds and thousands of dollars) are represented by blue to purple color transitions and high cost intensity (i.e. billions of dollars) are represented by orange to yellow color transitions. The remaining colors represent intermediate cost intensity (i.e., millions of dollars). Each row of the heatmap corresponds to one species and the species name and its vernacular name are depicted in the left and right margins of the heatmap respectively. Each column of the heat map corresponds to an impacted market sector and the type of cost required to overcome invasive species impact. The circles in the middle depicts a visual representation of invasive organisms. All silhouettes were freely obtained from www.phylopic.org.
The authors acknowledge the French National Research Agency (ANR-14-CE02-0021) and the BNP-Paribas Foundation Climate Initiative for funding the Invacost project that allowed the construction of the InvaCost database. The present work was conducted following a workshop funded by the AXA Research Fund Chair of Invasion Biology and is part of the AlienScenario project funded by BiodivERsA and Belmont-Forum call 2018 on biodiversity scenario. We also acknowledge all researchers and environmental managers who kindly answered our request for information about the costs of invasive species. JRPA thanks the researchers of the Invasion Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation Laboratory from Universidade Federal de Lavras for the discussions and analytical support. GH was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (Capes) – Finance code 001. LDBF thanks Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq – 306196/2018-2) and Minas Gerais Research Foundation (FAPEMIG) for financial support. CD was funded by the BiodivERsA-Belmont Forum Project “Alien Scenarios” (BMBF/PT DLR 01LC1807C). RDZ acknowledges support from CNPq-Brazil (grant 304701/2019-0).