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Detailed in a new study published in PLOS Biology, Queen’s has co-developed EEICAT, the Extended Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa, in collaboration with nine institutions worldwide, including Université Paris-Saclay.

This innovative tool is a new assessment framework based on the existing EICAT tool, which is the IUCN global standard for measuring the severity of environmental impacts caused by ‘invasive species’ – animals, fungi and plants living outside their natural ranges.

For the first time, this advancement will allow scientists and managers to measure the full range of impact magnitudes on ecosystem functions and abiotic conditions, the non-living physical and chemical components of an ecosystem, caused by invasions.

Commenting on EEICAT, Dr Ross Cuthbert from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s said:

“The environmental impacts from invasive species are massive, including native species population declines and even extinctions. However, other less obvious impact types can occur, such as effects on wildlife behaviours or the physical environment by so-called ecosystem engineers.

“Our new framework for invasive species impacts can capture the full diversity of impact types. This includes effects on individuals and populations, as well as behavioural, health, or survival changes. It also captures impacts on species and assemblages where effects on entire communities can be assessed following native species loss. Moreover, the framework includes impacts on whole ecosystems and their non-living parts, considering knock-on effects for food security, water quality, and fire frequency, among others.”

The study highlights diverse examples of these systemic shifts that traditional assessments would miss. For example, red swamp crayfish are invaders that do not just eat native prey, they physically consume aquatic plants, stripping away habitat structure. This leads to a loss of shelter for fishes and other organisms and fundamental changes in water quality.

Dr Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, also from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s added:

“The environmental impacts from biological invasions are similar in magnitude to the impacts caused by climate change. This is why developing scientific tools to advance our capabilities to measure the impacts of human-introduced species is so critical.

“With the EEICAT, scientists, environmental managers and anyone concerned with biological invasions will now be able to profile these impacts and their ‘cumulative stress’ more accurately. Also, the simplicity of assessments using EEICAT offers policymakers a powerful framework to facilitate reaching biodiversity targets.”

In addition to being more complete, EEICAT is also shifting assessment from general to case specific. Unlike previous systems that assign a single ‘global score’ to a species, EEICAT is event-based. It assesses impacts where they happen, allowing a single species to have different impact profiles in the different regions they invade, simplifying the assessment.

Media

For media enquiries please contact Grace White at Queen’s Communications Office: g.white@qub.ac.uk

• Press release adapted with thanks from Université Paris-Saclay.
• The study was led by researchers from Université Paris-Saclay (France) in collaboration with experts from Queen’s University ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ (UK), University of Turin (Italy), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and six other institutions worldwide. It was based on discussions held during several weeks over two international workshops gathering 86 invasion biology researchers from 37 countries.