Invasive species are organisms which are not native to a particular area and can have a devastating and widespread impact on economics, ecosystems, and human health. These detrimental impacts include decreased biodiversity, fitness, and abundance of native species in the area. Impacts can also include damaged infrastructure, diminished agricultural yields, and greater monetary demand for land and animal management. It is important to quantify the economic costs of these invasive species to inform species management and policy formation.
Certain industries can also be more likely to be negatively affected by invasive species. For example, the invasive tobacco whitefly costs the Mexican economy $20 million dollars each year by spreading disease to lettuce crops. As biological invasions are not confined by geopolitical boundaries, cooperation between nations to coordinate efforts to address invasions is essential, since the travel of people and trade of goods between countries is linked with increased invasions.
CEID’s Andrew Kramer worked with a research team to create a comprehensive estimate of the costs of invasive species in North America, specifically the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic, by utilizing the InvaCost database.
The InvaCost database is the most current global repository of invasion costs, providing details on the nature of the cost and the scale at which it was studied. This database was used to 1) characterize the cost per taxa in each country 2) examine which habitats and activity sectors are most economically impacted 3) identify the types of cost (species management or damage) 4) describe the dynamics of these costs in North America over time and 5) identify the pathways of origin for these invasive species.
The analysis determined that biological invasions have cost North America at least $1.26 trillion dollars between 1960 and 2017. In the early 1960s, invasions cost $2 billion dollars annually, but in recent decades, the costs have increased to over $26 billion per year. The United States was found to have the highest recorded costs from biological invasions in North America, and invasive vertebrate species were associated with the highest costs of any species. Further, terrestrial habitats incurred the greatest economic loss due to biological invasions. Particularly, the forestry and agricultural sectors incurred costs of $34.93 billion and $527.07 billion dollars from 1960 to 2017. Finally, direct damage costs, $837.09 billion, were significantly higher than management costs, $99.52 billion.
The economic impact of many North American invasive species have not been quantified; however, this means that these estimates of economic losses are likely conservative. Creating a more robust framework to economically assess the effects of invasive species will allow for more accurate costs estimates.
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By: Brenna Daly