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Corresponding author: Rafael Dudeque Zenni ( rafael.zenni@ufla.br ) Academic editor: Ingolf Kühn
© 2021 Rafael Dudeque Zenni, Franz Essl, Emili García-Berthou, Shana M. McDermott.
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:
Zenni RD, Essl F, García-Berthou E, McDermott SM (2021) The economic costs of biological invasions around the world. In: Zenni RD, McDermott S, García-Berthou E, Essl F (Eds) The economic costs of biological invasions around the world. NeoBiota 67: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.67.69971
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A large and increasing number of ecosystems of the planet are now invaded by alien species, resulting in detrimental impacts on biodiversity, human health, and ecosystem services (
Distribution of studies on economic costs of biological invasions. Lighter tones represent continents and regions covered by the special issue “The Economic Costs of Biological Invasions Around the World.” Delineation of countries does not imply data availability for every country depicted in that region or continent. Darker tones represented countries with assessments at national levels. Gray represents regions not included in the special issue.
Reported economic cost of invasive alien species for 13 countries and 6 supra-national regions, main type of expenditure reported (realized and expected), ecosystem with most cost reporting, main biological group for which economic cost was reported, number of invasive alien species for which economic cost was found and reference. Expenditure values are not directly comparable as studies have used different analytical approaches. We strongly suggest readers refer to the original papers cited in the table for detailed explanations on data gathering, analytical approach, potential limitations and recommendations.
Region | Expenditure (US$ million) | Main expenditure | Main system | Main group | Number of IAS with cost data | Reference |
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Africa | 78,900.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 62 |
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Asia | 432,600.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 88 |
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Japan | 728.00 | Management | Terrestrial | Animal | 54 |
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Russia | 51,520.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 72 |
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Singapore | 1,720.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 3 |
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Australia | 298,580.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Plants | 172 |
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Central and South America | 146,500.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 81 |
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Argentina | 6,908 | Damage | Terrestrial | Plants | 15 |
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Brazil | 105,530.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 16 |
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Ecuador | 626.00 | Management | Terrestrial | Animal | 37 |
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Europe | 140,200.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 381 |
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France | 11.535 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 98 |
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Germany | 9,800.00 | Management | Terrestrial | Animal | 28 |
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Italy | 819.76 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 15 |
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Spain | 261.00 | Management | Terrestrial | Plants | 174 |
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United Kingdom | 17,600.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 42 |
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Mediterranean | 27,300.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 218 |
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North America | 1,260,000.00 | Damage | Terrestrial | Animal | 164 |
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Mexico | 5,330.00 | Damage | Aquatic | Animal | 35 |
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All papers in this special issue are based on the InvaCost database (
Despite being widely recognized as a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services, reported economic costs of prevention, control, and damage of biological invasions on biodiversity and conservation are surprisingly rare. Perhaps just as perplexing, alien species are rarely identified as a leading threat to global agriculture and human health (but see
We can only speculate why most cost data come from agricultural and health sectors and rarely from the environmental sector. One reason might be that agriculture and human health are more commonly viewed as economic activities, whereas the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services preservation is often not recognized (i.e., crops and drugs are economic products, but biodiversity is not). Further, quantifiable economic impacts attributed to biodiversity loss and the environment tend to be indirect, making them more challenging to collect and estimate. Another reason might be that alien species are managed in conservation areas to maximize biodiversity protection, whereas, on farms, they are managed to optimize crop yield and revenue, making it easier to monetize gains and losses in agricultural systems. Overall, many of the papers in this issue encourage people engaged with biodiversity and natural resources management to document and report the costs associated with IAS.
Just like cost data were only available for a select few territories and industries, economic cost estimates were only available for a limited number of alien species (at most, 10% of known IAS in a given region). Europe reported costs for the largest number of species: 381 for the continent (
Aside from alien insects, which were frequently reported in the papers of the special issue, data were unavailable for a large number of alien species (
The papers in this special issue also highlight the challenge of comparing economic costs and damages over time. Most of the reported cost estimates are recent, so long-term trends on economic costs of biological invasions are not available in most publications, with the exception of the UK (
Taken together, all publications in this special issue “The Economic Cost of Biological Invasions Around the World” estimate global realized and potential economic impacts of biological invasions around US$2.3 trillion (2017 US dollars) (Table
In conclusion, the global map of expenditures with alien species shows that societies have been paying for the post-introduction management of alien species impacts with very little reported investment in prevention of biological invasions. While prevention might not necessarily be cheaper than control and impact mitigation efforts, in many cases it can help diminish the costly environmental, agricultural, and health impacts observed throughout this special issue. As a result, reducing globally the damage costs of biological invasions likely requires spending more money and effort undertaking prevention, early detection, and rapid response. Finding ways to minimize damage is essential because as the articles in this special issue highlight, the economic costs of biological invasions are only likely to increase in the future.
We thank the many reviewers who assessed the manuscripts of the SI (often more than once) for their invaluable suggestions and help. This special issue emerged from the InvaCost workshop held near Paris in November 2019 with the support from the ECOMOB program (funded by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), the Université Paris Saclay (Department of Biology) and the AXA Research Fund. RDZ acknowledges financial support from CNPq-Brazil (304701/2019-0). Financial support to EGB was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science (projects RED2018‐102571‐T, and PID2019-103936GB-C21) and the Government of Catalonia (ref. 2017 SGR 548).