“Trade has been shown repeatedly to be correlated to the number of invasive species a country has,” Paini said. The research finds that sub-Saharan Africa is the global region with the potential to be hit hardest, agriculturally speaking, by invasive species. They decided to use global trade connections, and the value of a country’s annual importation, as a proxy for the likelihood that pest species might be carried across borders. Burmese pythons in the Everglades, for instance, are a prime example of how an invasive species can take over an entire ecosystem in just a short amount of time. Of course, there are a variety of other factors affecting the extent to which an invasive species could harm a country’s economy once it’s established, Paini said.

Source: Washington Post June 21, 2016 15:29 UTC