Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
Keywords
InvaCost, Invasive alien species, Nonindigenous species, Non-native species, Socioeconomic damages
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151318
Abstract
The United States has thousands of invasive species, representing a sizable, but unknown burden to the national economy. Given the potential economic repercussions of invasive species, quantifying these costs is of paramount importance both for national economies and invasion management. Here, we used a novel global database of invasion costs (InvaCost) to quantify the overall costs of invasive species in the United States across spatiotemporal, taxonomic, and socioeconomic scales. From 1960 to 2020, reported invasion costs totaled $4.52 trillion (USD 2017). Considering only observed, highly reliable costs, this total cost reached $1.22 trillion with an average annual cost of $19.94 billion/year. These costs increased from $2.00 billion annually between 1960 and 1969 to $21.08 billion annually between 2010 and 2020. Most costs (73%) were related to resource damages and losses ($896.22 billion), as opposed to management expenditures ($46.54 billion). Moreover, the majority of costs were reported from invaders from terrestrial habitats ($643.51 billion, 53%) and agriculture was the most impacted sector ($509.55 billion). From a taxonomic perspective, mammals ($234.71 billion) and insects ($126.42 billion) were the taxonomic groups responsible for the greatest costs. Considering the apparent rising costs of invasions, coupled with increasing numbers of invasive species and the current lack of cost information for most known invaders, our findings provide critical information for policymakers and managers.
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Science of The Total Environment, v. 806, art. 151318
Scholar Commons Citation
Fantle-Lepczyk, Jean E.; Haubrock, Phillip J.; Kramer, Andrew M.; Cuthbert, Ross N.; Turbelin, Anna J.; Crystal-Ornelas, Robert; Diagne, Christophe; and Courchamp, Franck, "Economic Costs of Biological Invasions in the United States" (2022). Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications. 525.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/bin_facpub/525
