July 24, 2017

Mapping the state of alien species across the globe

Invasive alien species cost the world billions of dollars every year, threatening native species and biodiversity as well as human health and the way ecosystems work. While ecologists now understand how – and why – these plant and animal invaders spread, a global picture across different groups of organisms and ecosystems has been lacking.

To address this, the British Ecological Society (BES) is holding a symposium at Durham University next week, bringing together UK and international ecologists to gather the latest evidence on the geographical distribution and abundance of (invasive) non-native species worldwide.

Speakers:

Prof. Helen Roy, Ecologist at NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology 

Prof. Mark van Kleunen, Professor of Ecology at the University of Konstanz (Germany)

Dr Rob Colautti, Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Ecological Genomics at Queen’s University (Canada)