International forest quarantine activitie

In this article we discuss the possibility that an extraterrestrial species could be hostile to humanity, and present estimates for the probability that visitors to the Earth will be aggressive. For this purpose we develop a generic model of multiple civilizations which are permitted to interact, and using randomized parameters we simulate thousands of potential worlds through several millenia ...

The purpose of this paper is to present calculations of total costs of 13 alien invasive species (AIS) in Sweden. All species are subject to control by Swedish public authorities, and estimates for most AIS include either damage cost or actual control cost. The results indicate a total annual cost between approximately 1620 and 5080 million SEK, which correspond to SEK 175 and SEK 565 per capit...

Many species of plants are found in regions to which they are alien. Their global 10 distributions are characterised by a family of exponential functions of the kind that arise in 11 elementary statistical mechanics (an example in ecology is MacArthur's broken stick). We show here 12 that all these functions are quantitatively reproduced by a model containing a single parameter – 13 some global...

The invasion success of alien plant species depends, amongst other things, on their functional traits [4] and the susceptibility of ecosystems. There is now increasing interest in including biotic interactions particularly mutualistic associations [5], into frameworks assessing alien plant invasions, as they help bridge the invisibility and invasiveness features. The great majority of terrestri...

Urbanization and related anthropogenic modifications cause extent of habitat fragmentation and directly lead to decline of local biodiversity. Conservation biologists advocate corridor creation as one approach to rescue biodiversity. Here we examine the utility of roads as corridors in preserving plant diversity by investigating roadside vegetation in Yellow River Delta (YRD), China. We examine...

Climate change leads to species range shifts and consequently to changes in diversity. For many systems, increases in diversity capacity have been forecast, with spare capacity to be taken up by a pool of weedy species moved around by humans. Few tests of this hypothesis have been undertaken, and in many temperate systems, climate change impacts may be confounded by simultaneous increases in hu...

Studies suggest that the Southeast is an area of primary concern with regards to the spread of alien plant species (Miller 2003, Stapanian and others 1998). Data collected by Stapanian and others in 1998 showed that Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) occurred over 2 million acres in the Southeast, invading forests and displacing native species. Among the most important mechanisms for the ...

1. A prevalent question in the study of plant invasions has been whether or not invasions can be explained on the basis of traits. Despite many attempts, a synthetic view of multi-trait differences between alien and native species is not yet available. 2. We compiled a database of three ecologically important traits (specific leaf area, typical maximum canopy height, individual seed mass) for 4...