Stefan Dullinger, University of Vienna, Austria and 15 international colleagues have shown in a study on biological invasions based on extensive data of alien species from 10 taxonomic groups and 28 European countries that patterns of established alien species richness are more related to historical levels of socio-economic drivers than to contemporary ones.
The seeds of future invasion problems have already been sown and the scientists expect the problem of invasive species to become worse in the next few decades. They say that efforts to control invasive species should be expanded with a special focus on not only those species currently most harmful, but also on early warning and rapid response for species already in the territory that are likely to pose the greatest future threat.
The findings resulted from the three-year project DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Inventory for Europe), funded by European Union within its 6th Framework Programme.
- Socioeconomic legacy yields an invasion debt,
F. Essl, S. Dullinger, W. Rabitsch, P. E. Hulme, K. Hülber, V. Jarošík, I. Kleinbauer, F. Krausmann, I. Kühn, W. Nentwig, M. Vilà, P. Genovesi, F. Gherardi, M. L. Desprez-Loustau, A. Roques, P. Pyšek,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 2010.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1011728108 - Helmholtz for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany
