(Washington, DC) — Invasive species damage the environment, public health, and the economy. Harmful exotic species such as the zebra mussel, emerald ash borer, viral hemorrhagic septicemia, and hemlock wooly adelgid cause billions of dollars of damage each year in the United States alone. Climate change is likely to exacerbate the harm that existing invasive species cause to society.
Interactions between climate and biological invasions are the theme of a special section in the June 2008 issue of Conservation Biology, a leading scientific journal. This special section was the result of an effort by the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI) Invasive Species Program and the U.S. EPA’s Global Change Research Program to bring together leading experts to assess the state of scientific knowledge on climate and invasive species. These experts — including ELI staff, authored several articles that contribute significantly to the state of scientific knowledge on how a changing climate will affect patterns of invasion.
According to Current Practices and Future Opportunities for Policy on Climate Change and Invasive Species, one of the included articles, United States climate-change policy should specifically consider invasive species. Future climate change legislation should be designed and implemented to take advantage of potential synergies with invasive species policy and to avoid exacerbating the threats posed by invasive species.
“Climate change is likely to increase the social and environmental impacts of invasive species, and some invasive species may influence how climate changes and how society adapts to climate change,” said Read Porter, director of ELI’s Invasive Species Program, a co-author of the article. “It is important to predict identify these challenges before they occur to enable the creation of policies that can adapt to changes as they occur.”
In addition to discussing three case studies of climate-change/invasive species interactions, the article finds that current climate change assessment, mitigation, and adaptation policies do not systematically address invasive species interactions, and it highlights the need for future climate change policies to adequately consider invasive species. Similarly, current invasive species policies do not consider the effects of a changing climate. It concludes that future policies should follow three principles:
- Mitigation of climate change should not exacerbate invasive species problems;
- Management of invasive species should consider changing climatic conditions; and
- Climate change adaptation activities should contribute to invasive species management.
The special issue of Conservation Biology is available at the Society of Conservation Biology’s Web site at http://www.conbio.org.