TORONTO, January 19, 2012 – Invasive alien species are on the move in response to a warming climate but Canadian policies designed to manage the problem rarely consider how climate change is ratcheting up the risk, according to York University research published today in the journal Environmental Reviews.
“The interactive effects of climate change and invasive species are expected to have profound consequences for environments, economies and societies worldwide, says lead author Andrea Smith. “For example, many new infectious diseases will likely spread to theArctic, and coordinated circumpolar disease monitoring and targeted healthcare planning will be needed to handle this new pressure. Yet, these two drivers of global change are rarely considered jointly in policy and management initiatives.”
Smith, now a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology atYorkUniversity, conducted the research review while a senior fellow atYork’s Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS). She and eightYorkUniversityco-authors in fields ranging from science to law and social science to business, reviewed published research on invasive species shifting distributions under climate change to identify gaps in knowledge and research inCanada. Their comprehensive, interdisciplinary review finds that research has tended to focus on predictions of how climate change will affect the distribution of existing invasive species in Canada (including mountain pine beetle, gypsy moth, smallmouth bass and Lyme Disease), rather than on potential invasive species that might expand their range into Canada. Existing research also tends to ignore the socio-economic dimensions of the problem, they found.
There are barriers to predicting changes in the invasive species’ range under climate change, including the complexity of the issue, lack of ecological data, and failure to address the interactions between climate change and invasive species in research and policy. However, scientific knowledge about the impact of climate change on invasive species is growing, Smith says, and can be used as the foundation for policy development.
“This is just another example of how climate change is a big threat multiplier," notes John P. Smol, editor of Environmental Reviews and professor at Queen's University where he also holds the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change. “We simply have not even begun to understand all the negative repercussions of this problem.” This synthesis is the first to characterize the current state of knowledge on this critical issue inCanada.
Smith is now conducting a legislative review of invasive species policy in Canada, for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network.
Co-authors on the Environmental Reviews article are Professor Nina Hewitt (IRIS Senior Fellow and York University Department of Geography), Nicole Klenk (IRIS Senior Fellow), Professor Dawn Bazely (IRIS Director and York Department of Biology), Professor Norman Yan (IRIS Core Faculty, York Department of Biology, and Dorset Environmental Science Centre), Professor Stepan Wood (IRIS Acting Director and Osgoode Hall Law School), Professor James MacLellan (IRIS Senior Fellow and York Faculty of Environmental Studies), Professor Carla Lipsig-Mummé (Director of IRIS−affiliated Work in a Warming World program and York Department of Social Science) and Professor Irene Henriques (IRIS Core Faculty member and Schulich School of Business).
The IRIS research team received funding from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS — www.cfcas.ca), an independent funding body dedicated to supporting research that improves our understanding of climate change impacts on health, safety, economy and environment.
Environmental Reviews, published by NRC Research Press, is an electronic-only quarterly review journal that covers a wide range of important environmental issues, including climate change. www.nrcresearchpress.com/er (available Open Access on the www.nrcresearchpress.com website.)
Media Contact:
Lead author Andrea Smith, geckoals@yorku.ca
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22101 / wallsj@yorku.ca
IRIS (www.irisyorku.ca) is an interdisciplinary research centre at York University dedicated to pursuing multifaceted approaches to the contemporary challenges of sustainability. It is a focal point for sustainability-related research and action at all ten of York’s faculties. Through collaborative and interdisciplinary research, IRIS strives to push beyond traditional research methods to tackle real-world challenges with unique solutions. It supports sustainability-related research of York faculty members and students and is a leader in trans-disciplinary team-based research.
NRC Research Press, the publishing arm of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) since 1929, transitioned in September 2010 from NRC and the Federal Government of Canada into an independent not-for-profit organization operating under the new name Canadian Science Publishing. Canadian Science Publishing (which continues to operate under the brand NRC Research Press) is the foremost scientific publisher in Canada and one of the most advanced electronic publishing services in the world. With over 50 highly skilled experts and an editorial team comprising some of the world's leading researchers, NRC Research Press communicates scientific discoveries to more than 175 countries.
