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  • News | 14 Mar 2025

New KCBD paper on "Conservation paradoxes and challenges in invasive alien species with economic costs"

Biodiversity

The KCBD team just published a new paper entitled "Conservation paradoxes and challenges in invasive alien species with economic costs" in Biological Conservation.

In this work, we highlighted which invasive alien species triggering economic costs due to their invasiveness (IAS with economic costs) are simultaneously conservation priorities in their native areas - and this for the world's mammals, birds and plants!

We revealed that 10 IAS with economic costs are also conservation priorities because they are threatened in their native areas. We further showed that 27 IAS with economic costs are conservation priorities because they are among the most distinctive species of their group, either because of their unique ecological functions or their unique evolutionary history. Finally, we stressed out that one IAS with economic costs, the koala, is a conservation priority in its native area both because it is threatened and evolutionary distinctive.

Our work stresses to an unprecedented level that some species simultaneously need to be controlled in their invasive range and protected in their native range. For all these species, coordinated management at population-level would maximise conservation outcomes.