Abstract
The current methods to assess the environmental impacts of plant pests differ in their approaches and there is a
lack of the standardized procedures necessary to provide accurate and consistent results, demonstrating the
complexity of developing a commonly accepted scheme for this purpose. By including both the structural and
functional components of the environment threatened by invasive alien species (IAS), in particular plant pests,
we propose an environmental risk assessment scheme that addresses this complexity. Structural components
are investigated by evaluating the impacts of the plant pest on genetic, species and landscape diversity. Functional
components are evaluated by estimating howplant pests modify ecosystem services in order to determine the
extent to which an IAS changes the functional traits that influence ecosystem services. A scenario study at a defined
spatial and temporal resolution is then used to explore how an IAS, as an exogenous driving force, may trigger
modifications in the target environment. The method presented here provides a standardized approach to
generate comparable and reproducible results for environmental risk assessment as a component of Pest Risk
Analysis. The method enables the assessment of overall environmental risk which integrates the impacts on
different components of the environment and their probabilities of occurrence. The application of the proposed
scheme is illustrated by evaluating the environmental impacts of the invasive citrus long-horn beetle,
Anoplophora chinensis
Lingua originale | English |
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pagine (da-a) | 475-486 |
Numero di pagine | 12 |
Rivista | Science of the Total Environment |
Volume | 468-469 |
DOI | |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2014 |
Keywords
- Ecosystem services
- Environmental risk
- Functional biodiversity
- Invasive alien species (IAS)
- Plant pests
- Service-providing units