Blacklists do not necessarily make people curious about invasive alien species. A case study with Bayesian structural time series and Wikipedia searches about invasive mammals in Italy

Blacklists of invasive alien species are a popular tool to manage and prevent biological invasions. Furthermore, by providing accessible examples of invasive alien species and by having a certain media resonance, they can in principle raise the awareness and make laypeople curious towards this topic. However, no study ever tested for this side-effect of blacklists. We tested if the implementation of the first blacklist of invasive alien species of the European concern, by the European Union in August 2016, increased visits to Wikipedia pages about invasive alien mammals in Italy. We adopted Bayesian Structural Time Series, using native mammals as a synthetic control, and we considered both invasive alien mammals that appeared on the list and those which were not included.Following the publication of the first European blacklist of invasive alien species, there was no increase in the amount of weekly visits to the Wikipedia pages about invasive mammals. This was true both for species that were included in the list and those which were not. Rather increased search volumes were syncronous to other events that had media resonance. Our results indicate that important policymaking initiatives, do not necessarily raise public awareness about biological invasions, even when these policies, such as blacklists, are easy to understand and have a certain media coverage. We emphasize the importance of coupling them with adequate communication campaigns and also to develop communication guidelines for the media.

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Introducing AlienScenarios: a project to develop scenarios and models of biological invasions for the 21 st century

NeoBiota ◽

10.3897/neobiota.45.33366 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 45 ◽

pp. 1-17 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Franz Essl ◽

Bernd Lenzner ◽

Franck Courchamp ◽

Stefan Dullinger ◽

Jonathan M. Jeschke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biological Invasions ◽

Alien Species ◽

Invasive Alien Species ◽

The European Union ◽

Economic Costs ◽

Country Level ◽

Invasion Model ◽

First Time ◽

Different Levels

AlienScenarios, a three-year project starting in March 2019, will evaluate for the first time the range of plausible futures of biological invasions for the 21st century. AlienScenarios consists of seven project partners and seven integrated complementary subprojects. We will develop the qualitative narratives for plausible futures of global alien species richness and impacts in the 21st century – the Alien Species Narratives (ASNs). The ASNs further serve as overarching concept to parameterize quantitative models of global, continental and regional futures of biological invasions. We will also establish the first global mechanistic invasion model considering major processes of biological invasions such as source pools, driver dynamics and establishment rates. Further, we will assess the impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) in terms of economic costs according to the different ASNs. In addition, we will assess the consequences of different levels of implementation of the European Union Regulation on IAS. Providing some more detailed regional information, we will analyse changes of the functional composition of communities in mountain regions under different scenario storylines and will extend the analyses to the Global South using Panama as a country-level case study. Finally, the results of the other WPs will be synthesized, and the approach and results of AlienScenarios will be discussed with and communicated to stakeholders and the wider community. AlienScenarios will provide crucially needed insights for pro-active alien species management and policy. It will thus make an important contribution to global assessments and projections of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as regional policies (e.g. EU regulation on IAS).

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A nation-wide analysis of Wikipedia and Google Searches in Italy reveals a growing interest towards biological invasions

10.32942/osf.io/afrpk ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jacopo Cerri ◽

Sandro Bertolino ◽

Lucilla Carnevali ◽

Alessandro Piazzi ◽

Andrea Monaco ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biological Invasions ◽

Alien Species ◽

Large Scale ◽

Invasive Alien Species ◽

Public Awareness ◽

Public Policies ◽

General Interest ◽

Eu Regulation ◽

Line Searches ◽

General Terms

Biological invasions are a major driver of global change and the target of many public policies. However, we still do not know whether they attract the interest of laypeople and motivate them to know more about this topic. We modeled the temporal evolution of on-line searches about general terms regarding invasive alien species in Italy, on Wikipedia and Google.Wikipedia pages about biological invasions steadily increase their number of views and the GoogleTrends index for queries about invasive species also increased or remained stable, albeit a growing number of searches, between 2010 and 2019. The number of months without searches decreased through time, for both Google and Wikipedia searches. Also, the number of Google searches increased after the first EU regulation 1143/2014 invasive alien species entered in force. All the Wikipedia pages increased their number of views, by a magnitude suggesting that also laypeople contributed to this dynamic.A portion of the Italian society seems to have become interested about biological invasions, at least since 2010, regularly documenting about them on the Internet. This paves the way for increasing public awareness about this phenomenon, as well as citizen engagement in monitoring and management initiatives. The increase in Google searches after the EU Regulation on invasive alien species could indicate that general interest towards biological invasions is influenced also by large-scale public policies.

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The emergence of biological invasions on food chains: a DPSIR analysis

British Food Journal ◽

10.1108/bfj-10-2020-0908 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Alessandra Faraudello ◽

Donato Gualtieri ◽

Zsuzsanna Szeles

Keyword(s):

Biological Invasions ◽

Alien Species ◽

Invasive Alien Species ◽

Driving Forces ◽

Social Consequences ◽

Food Distribution ◽

Food Chains ◽

The European Union ◽

Content Type ◽

The Impact

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate the emergence of a biological invasion and to explain the potential economic and social consequences on food chains. Straddling between ecology, social sciences, resource management and economics, invasion science is aimed at detecting, understanding and mitigating the impact of biological invasions on receiving ecosystems, including food ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachAfter a theoretical investigation about the main notions relevant for the invasion science, the authors practically review the kind of impacts deriving from biological invasions, mainly under economic, human health, ecosystem and biodiversity criteria.FindingsThe authors apply the DPSIR (Driving forces–pressure-state-impact-response) framework, originally developed in the context of European Environment Agency in this different context in order to assess the social, economic and environmental impacts of Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Responding to this emerging phenomenon, the European Union issues the EU regulation 1143/2014 which is the first strong act on invasive alien species.Originality/valueImplications – Food chains are complex systems that have multiple interdependencies both endogenously and exogenously, such as food production, food transportation, food logistics, food distribution, and so forth. However, it is rarely conceived the impact of invasion systems on the dynamics of food chains, although food sustainability is in turn impacted by how effectively and efficiently the various interdependencies have been designed or are working.

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The educational community and its knowledge and perceptions of native and invasive alien species

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-00683-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Alejandro J. Sosa ◽

Nadia L. Jiménez ◽

Ana C. Faltlhauser ◽

Tomás Righetti ◽

Fernando Mc Kay ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biological Invasions ◽

Alien Species ◽

Science Teachers ◽

Native Species ◽

Invasive Alien Species ◽

Public Awareness ◽

Educational Community ◽

Management Actions ◽

Environment Recognition ◽

The Impact

AbstractEnvironmental education seeks to foster an appreciation for nature and the impact of humans on it while introducing citizens to scientific thinking. Biological invasions affect different aspects of life on earth and mandate urgent management actions. Education and public awareness are strongly recommended for successful prevention and management of invasive alien species (IAS). This work presents a study on knowledge and perception of the educational community of Argentina about native species and IAS. We designed an on-line semi-structured questionnaire to examine perception of the environment, recognition of native species and IAS and awareness about biological invasions. Educators recognised an important number of biotic components, mostly represented by trees, birds and mammals. Recognition of native species and IAS, and awareness of biological invasions were different between NST (Natural Science Teachers) and non-NST. Respondents had different performances when they were exposed to recognising native species though written names or photographs. Out of 532 respondents, 56% knew what biological invasions are, 21% answered “Maybe” and 23% had never heard about them. We need to foster capacity-building and encourage a two-way communication between educators and scientists, formally and informally, to engage the participation of the whole society in recognition, prevention and management of IAS.

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