Researchers Use IPBES Approach to Values to Revisit Positive Impacts of Non-Native Species

Description of Impact(s) (English Only) Using the IPBES apparoach of a comprehensive range of nature-based values, researchers from UNIGE and Brown University have made the case for reevaluating maligned non-native species - specifically that the contribution of some of these species can also be positive. ’’Positive impacts of non-native species are often explained as serendipitous surprises — the sort of thing that people might expect to happen every once in a while, in special circumstances,’’ says Dov Sax, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at Brown University. ’’Our new paper argues that the positive impacts of non-native species are neither unexpected nor rare, but instead common, important and often of large magnitude.’’ Good for people and nature.

The study borrows from a recent framework developed by IPBES, an international platform for the assessment of biodiversity and its ecosystem services, which examines the benefits of biodiversity for people and nature, and applies it to non-native species, showing the diverse, frequent and important ways that non-native species provide positive value for people and nature.