The Illegal Wildlife Trade Is a Likely Source of Alien Species: Illegal wildlife trade and invasion risk

Pablo García-Díaz; Joshua V. Ross; Andrew P. Woolnough; Phillip Cassey

doi:10.1111/conl.12301

The Illegal Wildlife Trade Is a Likely Source of Alien Species: Illegal wildlife trade and invasion risk

Pablo García-Díaz^* (Corresponding Author), Joshua V. Ross, Andrew P. Woolnough, Phillip Cassey

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)

19 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The illegal wildlife trade is driving biodiversity declines worldwide, yet its role in transporting alien species with a high likelihood of establishment is seldom considered. We demonstrate the threat posed by the illegal reptile trade in Australia. We modeled the establishment success of alien reptiles in Australia, revealing the importance of both minimum number of release events and the body length of the species. Using our model, we screened 28 alien reptiles illegally traded in Victoria, Australia. Establishment risk varied widely across species, and a whole‐pathway analysis revealed that 5 out of the 28 species (17.9%) are likely to become established if released. The global dimension of the illegal wildlife trade calls for a tight transnational collaboration, via multilateral cooperation agreements arranging the share of resources. Complementary to this, we encourage conducting campaigns to raise public awareness about the risk and legal consequences of participating in the wildlife black market.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	690-698
Number of pages	9
Journal	Conservation Letters
Volume	10
Issue number	6
Early online date	27 Oct 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12301
Publication status	Published - Nov 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information
ARC Discovery. Grant Number: DP140102319
Future Fellowships. Grant Number: FT0991420
J.V.R.. Grant Number: FT130100254
Invasive Animals CRC. Grant Number: 1L4
Australian Research Council. Grant Number: DP140102319, FT0991420, FT130100254

Keywords

alien reptile
Australia
establishment success
multilateral cooperation
propagule pressure
risk management
transport pathway

Access to Document

10.1111/conl.12301Licence: CC BY

The Illegal Wildlife Trade Is a Likely Source of Alien Species
his is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 733 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The Illegal Wildlife Trade Is a Likely Source of Alien Species: Illegal wildlife trade and invasion risk",

abstract = "The illegal wildlife trade is driving biodiversity declines worldwide, yet its role in transporting alien species with a high likelihood of establishment is seldom considered. We demonstrate the threat posed by the illegal reptile trade in Australia. We modeled the establishment success of alien reptiles in Australia, revealing the importance of both minimum number of release events and the body length of the species. Using our model, we screened 28 alien reptiles illegally traded in Victoria, Australia. Establishment risk varied widely across species, and a whole‐pathway analysis revealed that 5 out of the 28 species (17.9%) are likely to become established if released. The global dimension of the illegal wildlife trade calls for a tight transnational collaboration, via multilateral cooperation agreements arranging the share of resources. Complementary to this, we encourage conducting campaigns to raise public awareness about the risk and legal consequences of participating in the wildlife black market.",

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KW - propagule pressure

KW - risk management

KW - transport pathway

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The Illegal Wildlife Trade Is a Likely Source of Alien Species: Illegal wildlife trade and invasion risk

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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