AA new study has for the first time predicted which invasive species could pose a future threat to the UK’s ecologically unique Overseas Territories.
AA new study has for the first time predicted which invasive species could pose a future threat to the UK’s ecologically unique Overseas Territories.
The 14 Territories – many of them small, remote islands such as St Helena and Pitcairn – are home to species found nowhere else in the world. This makes them extremely vulnerable to biological invasions – in the oceans or on land – which could lead to the extinction of these endemic species or irrevocably change their unique ecosystems.
Researchers at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and Durham University, working in partnership with communities on the Overseas Territories, assessed thousands of potential invasive non-native species, to predict which are most likely to arrive and impact these environments within the next 10 years.
Read more at: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
New Zealand flax, an invasive species, photographed on St Helena. (Photo Credit: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)
