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We aimed to assess the utility of the Global Compendium of Weeds (GCW) as an indicator of plant invasiveness, by relating it to invasiveness at smaller scales. We correlated two global measures of invasiveness for alien plant species taken from the GCW (the total number of references for each species and the number of continental areas they are reported from), against distribution data from 18 regions (countries and continents). To investigate relationships between correlation strength and region size and spatial resolution (size of distribution units), we conducted meta-analyses. Finally, invasiveness measures were correlated against the number of habitats occupied by alien plant species and their median abundance in those habitats, in fine-scale vegetation plots in the Czech Republic and the state of Montana (USA). The majority of Spearman’s rho coefficients between GCW-derived invasiveness and regional distributions were less than 0.4. Correlation strength was positively related to region size and resolution. Correlations were weaker when the number of habitats occupied by a species, and species abundances within occupied habitats, were considered. We suggest that the use of the GCW as an invasiveness measure is most appropriate for hypotheses posed at coarse, large scales. An exhaustive synthesis of existing regional distributions should provide a more accurate index of the global invasiveness of species.
The number of invasive alien species is increasing and so are the impacts these species cause to the environment and economies. Nevertheless, resources for management are limited, which makes prioritization unavoidable. We present a prioritization framework which can be useful for decision makers as it includes both a scientific impact assessment and the evaluation of impact importance by affected stakeholders. The framework is divided into five steps, namely 1) stakeholder selection and weighting of stakeholder importance by the decision maker, 2) factual description and scoring of changes by scientists, 3) evaluation of the importance of impact categories by stakeholders, 4) calculation of weighted impact categories and 5) calculation of final impact score and decision making. The framework could be used at different scales and by different authorities. Furthermore, it would make the decision making process transparent and retraceable for all stakeholders and the general public.