Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Konstantinos Tsiamis ( kostas.tsiamis@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Franz Essl
© 2017 Konstantinos Tsiamis, Ana Cristina Cardoso, Eugenio Gervasini.
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:
Tsiamis K, Cardoso AC, Gervasini E (2017) The European Alien Species Information Network on the Convention on Biological Diversity pathways categorization. NeoBiota 32: 21-29. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.32.9429
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The adoption of a consistent alien species pathways categorization, hierarchy and terminology is crucial for increasing the interoperability of different online databases. In the present paper the European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN) classification system of pathways is compared and discussed with the classification scheme recently published by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Although the main pathway categories of the two classifications overall match, there are substantial differences in their subcategorization, with EASIN including 20 pathway subcategories while CBD considers 44 subcategories. In most cases, each EASIN subcategory pathway can correspond to two or more CBD subcategories. About 5,500 species listed in EASIN do not match directly with the CBD pathway subcategories, most of which are terrestrial invertebrates. Aiming at achieving synchronization between the two classification systems and at facilitating the access to information to researchers and policy makers, EASIN is trying to align with the CBD pathway classification scheme. This alignment process requires the involvement of a large number of experts, especially from the terrestrial realm, and the adoption of commonly accepted definitions of the CBD pathways.
alien, invasive, Europe, interoperability, pathway, EASIN, CBD
Invasive Alien Species (IAS) constitute one of the most important threats to biodiversity, causing severe ecological and socio-economic impacts (
The European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN, http://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu/) has been developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) (
Information on alien species introduction pathways is fundamental for the reliability and effectiveness of alien species risk assessments, management, monitoring, and surveillance (
The increasing threat of IAS has lead CBD to a comprehensive review of the alien species pathways, adopting a note of the executive Secretary on the categorisation of identified pathways of introduction of IAS (
In the present paper a comparative analysis between the EASIN and the CBD pathway classification schemes is presented (Table
Comparison of sub-category pathways between CBD and EASIN classification systems; green colour corresponds to perfect match between the two systems; blue colour includes cases where an EASIN pathway corresponds to two (or more) CBD pathways; orange colour indicates a case where a CBD pathway corresponds to two EASIN pathways; red colour refers to cases where an EASIN pathway does not match with any CBD pathway or vice versa. The number of related species for each pathway in EASIN is also provided.
Category pathways | CBD sub-category pathways | EASIN sub-category pathways | EASIN No. of Species |
---|---|---|---|
Release in nature | Biological control | Biocontrol | 181 |
Erosion control/ dune stabilization (windbreaks, hedges, …) | Landscaping-Erosion control | 64 | |
Landscape/flora/fauna “improvement” in the wild | |||
Fishery in the wild (including game fishing) | Game animals | 93 | |
Hunting | |||
Introduction for conservation purposes or wildlife management | |||
Release in nature for use (other than above, e.g., fur, transport, medical use) | |||
Other intentional release | Other + Pets, Terrarium-Aquarium species | 1102 | |
Escape from confinement | Agriculture (including Biofuel feedstocks) | Cultivation and Livestock | 780 |
Farmed animals (including animals left under limited control) | |||
Forestry (including afforestation or reforestation) | |||
Fur farms | |||
Horticulture | |||
Aquaculture / mariculture | Aquaculture | 171 | |
Botanical garden/zoo/aquaria (excluding domestic aquaria) | Zoos, botanical gardens | 262 | |
Pet/aquarium/terrarium species (including live food for such species) | Pets, Terrarium-Aquarium species | 246 | |
Ornamental purpose other than horticulture | Ornamental planting | 1935 | |
Research and ex-situ breeding (in facilities) | |||
Live food and live bait | Use of live food-bait | 28 | |
Other escape from confinement | |||
Transport – contaminant | Contaminant nursery material | Trade of contaminated commodities | 3382 |
Contaminated bait | |||
Food contaminant (including of live food) | |||
Contaminant on animals (except parasites, species transported by host/vector) | |||
Parasites on animals (including species transported by host and vector) | |||
Contaminant on plants (except parasites, species transported by host/vector) | |||
Parasites on plants (including species transported by host and vector) | |||
Seed contaminant | |||
Timber trade | |||
Transportation of habitat material (soil, vegetation, …) | |||
Aquaculture | 228 | ||
Packaging materials | 56 | ||
Transport - stowaway | Angling/fishing equipment | ||
Container/bulk | |||
Hitchhikers in or on airplane | Aviation | 27 | |
Hitchhikers on ship/boat (excluding ballast water and hull fouling) | Shipping | 921 | |
Ship/boat ballast water | |||
Ship/boat hull fouling | |||
Machinery/equipment | |||
People and their luggage/equipment (in particular tourism) | |||
Organic packing material, in particular wood packaging | |||
Vehicles (car, train, …) | Land transport | 297 | |
Other means of transport | |||
Corridor | Interconnected waterways/basins/seas | Lessepsian migrants | 499 |
Inland Canals | 66 | ||
Tunnels and land bridges | |||
Railroads and Highways | 38 | ||
Unaided | Natural dispersal across borders of invasive alien species that have been introduced through pathways the rest main pathways categories. | OTHER | 981 |
A thorough comparison between the EASIN and CBD systems reveals that the sub-category pathways of about 5,500 alien species registered in EASIN (51% of the EASIN species with assigned pathway) do not match directly with the available CBD pathway subcategories. Similar comparisons were made by
A more detailed analysis of the EASIN data reveals that 52% of the terrestrial alien species included in EASIN match with the CBD classification. In comparison, the matching between the two systems is higher for the freshwater species of EASIN (70%), but lower for the marine species (43%). Still, the corresponding number of the EASIN alien species per habitat is much higher for the terrestrial group compared to the marine and freshwater (Figure
Pathway matching between EASIN and CBD sub-category classification systems for alien species included in EASIN per habitat.
Pathway matching between EASIN and CBD sub-category classification systems for alien species included in EASIN per main taxonomic groups.
Number of EASIN alien species per main taxonomic group with assigned pathway not matching the CBD classification. The related number of alien species corresponding to each EASIN pathway is also depicted.
It should be noted that the accurate determination of an alien species pathway is not always an easy task and it may be characterised by high levels of uncertainty (
In addition, there are some points in the CBD scheme that need further clarification. For example, the distinction between the CBD sub-category pathways “horticulture” and “ornamental purpose other than horticulture” is not clear and could result in different interpretations among stakeholders. This is especially important for alien land plants, where about 2,000 species in EASIN are assigned to the “ornamental planting” pathway (Table
Still, the need for interoperability among pathway classification systems is today crucial, considering also the recent IAS Regulation implementation needs. Pathway terminology has historically varied among alien species databases (
The alignment of the EASIN species to the CBD pathway sub-categories is challenging and resources demanding due to the high number of EASIN species that need to be revised. In some cases this can be relatively simple; i.e. species assigned to “game animals” correspond either to “fishery in the wild” or to “hunting” in terms of the CBD classification. However, for species related with other pathway subcategories (e.g. ‘trade of contaminated commodities”) their alignment to the CBD system is more demanding and requires deep search in the scientific literature and any other relevant sources of information. Moreover, pathway assignment for less documented species is subject to uncertainty (
The Authors wish to thank the European Commission Direction General Environment (DG ENV) for their support.