ConservationBiology on emsenn.net

Biological Control

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Biological control (biocontrol) is the deliberate use of living organisms to suppress populations of pest species. In the context of invasive species management, classical biological control involves importing a specialist natural enemy — typically an insect herbivore, parasitoid, or pathogen — from the invasive species’ native range and releasing it in the invaded range to establish a permanent, self-sustaining check on the invader’s population.

The logic is straightforward: an invasive species is often invasive precisely because it has escaped from the natural enemies that constrain it in its native range (the enemy release hypothesis). Classical biocontrol reverses that escape by reuniting the organism with an enemy specifically adapted to exploit it.

Invasive Species

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An invasive species is an organism that has been introduced — deliberately or accidentally — to a region outside its native range, has established self-sustaining populations there, and causes measurable harm to the ecology, economy, or human health of the invaded region. Not every non-native species is invasive. Most introduced species fail to establish. Of those that establish, most remain ecologically minor. A small fraction — estimated at roughly 1% of introductions, the “tens rule” — become invasive, and these are the ones that cause disproportionate damage.

Riparian

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Riparian describes the interface between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems — the land immediately adjacent to rivers, streams, lakes, and other water bodies. Riparian zones are transitional habitats where the influence of water shapes soil, vegetation, and ecological processes in ways distinct from both the aquatic environment and the upland beyond.

Riparian zones are ecologically disproportionate — they occupy a small fraction of the landscape but support a large fraction of biodiversity, regulate water quality through filtration and nutrient uptake, stabilize banks against erosion, moderate water temperature through shading, and buffer flood energy. Their destruction or degradation has cascading effects on both the aquatic and terrestrial systems they connect.

The Japanese Knotweed Invasion

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In 1847, the Society of Agriculture and Horticulture at Utrecht awarded a gold medal to a plant recently arrived from Japan — “the most interesting ornamental plant of the year.” The plant was Reynoutria japonica, Japanese knotweed. Within 150 years, the same species would be listed among the world’s 100 worst invasive alien species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, would be the subject of dedicated legislation in multiple countries, and would cost the British economy an estimated £166 million annually in control and property devaluation.