Format: ORAL

Feifei Li1,Jin-shuang Ma1

China National Botanical Garden (North Garden)

Invasive alien plants (IAPs) pose a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. The recent adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets an ambitious Target 6 for tackling invasive alien species. Our study provides a comprehensive analysis of the current national management list of IAPs. It aims to answer the questions for achieving this target: Which species are priority IAPs/potential IAPs/should be eradicated or controlled in priority sites? How to manage IAPs to achieve the target? 107 countries/union were analyzed, and only 26 of them have officially released national management IAPs lists. 65% of them are legal documents while 35% are only official lists. These countries/union span six continents. France, South Africa and Argentina have more than 300 IAPs, while Slovakia only has seven IAPs. Based on all of the lists, 1316 taxa were compiled, belonging to 683 genera and 149 families. The families with the most taxa are Poaceae (159) and the genera with the most taxa are Prosopis (29 ). 104 taxa distributed in at least three continents and listed in four or more countries/union were considered as the priority IAPs in our study. We also found species exchanged between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres have been a major pathway enabling plant invasions worldwide. For potential IAPs, we suggested the long-distance pathways between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres should be a top focus for prevention and pathways management. Aquatic IAPs are recognized as top priorities for prevention and control in island nations and other vulnerable sites. Additionally, our study revealed that most countries/union lack concrete control and management measures. This indicates that significant improvements are still needed to align IAPs lists and policies with the called for Target 6.