Economic costs of invasive rodents worldwide: the tip of the iceberg

PeerJ

article

Christophe Diagne¹  Liliana Ballesteros-Mejia²  Ross N. Cuthbert³  Thomas W. Bodey⁴  Jean Fantle-Lepczyk⁵  Elena Angulo²  Alok Bang⁷  Gauthier Dobigny¹  Franck Courchamp² 

[1] CBGP, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro;Université Paris-Saclay;Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast;School of Biological Sciences, King’s College, University of Aberdeen;School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University;Estación Biológica de Doñana;Society for Ecology Evolution and Development;Unité Peste, Institut Pasteur de Madagascar

关键词: Damage costs;    InvaCost;    Management expenditures;    Monetary impact;    Rodents;    Reporting bias;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.14935

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRodents are among the most notorious invasive alien species worldwide. These invaders have substantially impacted native ecosystems, food production and storage, local infrastructures, human health and well-being. However, the lack of standardized and understandable estimation of their impacts is a serious barrier to raising societal awareness, and hampers effective management interventions at relevant scales.MethodsHere, we assessed the economic costs of invasive alien rodents globally in order to help overcome these obstacles. For this purpose, we combined and analysed economic cost data from the InvaCost database—the most up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of reported invasion costs—and specific complementary searches within and beyond the published literature.ResultsOur conservative analysis showed that reported costs of rodent invasions reached a conservative total of US$ 3.6 billion between 1930 and 2022 (annually US$ 87.5 million between 1980 and 2022), and were significantly increasing through time. The highest cost reported was for muskrat Ondatra zibethicus (US$ 377.5 million), then unspecified Rattus spp. (US$ 327.8 million), followed by Rattus norvegicus specifically (US$ 156.6 million) and Castor canadensis (US$ 150.4 million). Of the total costs, 87% were damage-related, principally impacting agriculture and predominantly reported in Asia (60%), Europe (19%) and North America (9%). Our study evidenced obvious cost underreporting with only 99 documents gathered globally, clear taxonomic gaps, reliability issues for cost assessment, and skewed breakdowns of costs among regions, sectors and contexts. As a consequence, these reported costs represent only a very small fraction of the expected true cost of rodent invasions (e.g., using a less conservative analytic approach would have led to a global amount more than 80-times higher than estimated here).ConclusionsThese findings strongly suggest that available information represents a substantial underestimation of the global costs incurred. We offer recommendations for improving estimates of costs to fill these knowledge gaps including: systematic distinction between native and invasive rodents’ impacts; monetizing indirect impacts on human health; and greater integrative and concerted research effort between scientists and stakeholders. Finally, we discuss why and how this approach will stimulate and provide support for proactive and sustainable management strategies in the context of alien rodent invasions, for which biosecurity measures should be amplified globally.

【 授权许可】

CC BY