ID: 613 / 170

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: ASSESSING AND CLASSIFYING THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF ALIEN PLANTS

Abstract: Globalization –the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and human populations– is accelerating the intentional and accidental introduction of plant species to regions beyond their natural biogeographic boundaries. Of all introduced species, a small proportion become invasive (i.e., survive, form self-replacing populations and spread rapidly over substantial distances). Invasive plants can cause severe negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts in the invaded areas. For example, they can reduce the benefits derived from ecosystem services; affect human health and infrastructure; cause significant economic losses; impact native taxa through competition, hybridization, toxicity or bio-fueling; change ecosystem functioning and disrupt biotic interactions. Impact assessment protocols can help prioritizing the management of alien plants according to their impacts. One of the most popular protocols to assess the environmental impact of biological invasions is the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT). EICAT is the IUCN global standard for measuring the severity of environmental impacts caused by animals, fungi and plants living outside their natural range. EICAT has been applied to a large variety of taxa, but EICAT assessments of alien plants are currently lacking. In this symposium, we aim to discuss the potential of EICAT to assess the environmental impacts of alien plants, as well as the potential of other impact assessment schemes such us the Socio-Economic Impact Classification of Alien Taxa (SEICAT), the positive Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT+), the Plant Risk Evaluator Tool (PRE), or the HARMONIA+ protocol.

Speaker 1: Ana Luisa Nunes Biodiversity Assessment and Knowledge Team, Science and Data Centre, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Cambridge, UK Ana.Nunes@iucn.org Introducing the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT)

Speaker 2: Giovanni Vimercati Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland gvimercati@outlook.com Assessing the positive impacts of alien plants using EICAT+

Speaker 3: Sabrina Kumschick Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa sabrinakumschick@sun.ac.za Assessing the positive and negative impacts of Australian Acacias.

Topics (Up to three): Global change ecology

Topic 2: Conservation Biology

Topic 3: Ecology and Plant Communities

Justification: Although the IUCN global standard for measuring the severity of environmental impacts (EICAT, Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa) has been applied to a large variety of taxa, EICAT assessments of alien plants are currently lacking. With this symposium we aim to promote the use of EICAT, SEICAT and EICAT+ among the botanical international community.