Biology subjects

Courchamp, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Courchamp, F..

10 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

AnthropInsect: a global database of insect traits and anthropogenic associations.

Insect research remains hindered by limited data availability and fragmented knowledge compared to other, better-documented taxonomic groups. Yet, both the macroecological and the insect research communities highlight the need to integrate large-scale ecological trait datasets for insects. Insects and humans are interconnected through diverse relationships, ranging from beneficial interactions, such as the use of insects as nutritional resources, to adverse impacts, including their role in to the emergence and spread of biological invasions. Understanding the traits of insects associated with human use, movement and impact is therefore important for linking insects to ecosystem function and global change. We present AnthropInsect, one of the largest database on insect traits to date, which uniquely includes variables describing human-insect associations. AnthropInsect describes species through 35 variables grouped into five categories: (i) taxonomic descriptors; (ii) ecological descriptors (native bioregions and habitat); (iii) human-insect associations (edibility and invasive status); (iv) functional traits (behavior, morphology, life history and feeding); (v) and macroecological descriptors of native-range geography and climate. AnthropInsect currently includes 5867 species across six major orders: Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Orthoptera and Blattodea. Data extracted from peer-reviewed, grey literature and from existing databases were standardized and validated with expert knowledge to ensure accuracy. By providing traits data with information on insect-human interactions, this rigorously curated resource supports global research in entomology, ecology, conservation, and global change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Predicting the biological invasion risks of the most farmed insect for food and feed.

Insect farming is recognized as a sustainable alternative to traditional livestock, offering significant reductions in land, water, and feed use, along with lower greenhouse gas emissions. However, the potential for farmed insects to escape or be released poses a significant biological invasion risk, threatening biodiversity, human well-being, and economies. This study is the first to quantify the global spatial invasion risk of seven of the most farmed insect species. We employ state-of-the-art Species Distribution Models integrating climatic and socio-economic variables to predict habitat suitability and identify high-risk regions. Our analysis highlights substantial invasion risks globally, with key hotspots in the Caribbean, South America, Western and Central Europe, and Oceania. While high-risk areas are species-dependent, the banded cricket, common housefly, and black soldier fly pose the greatest risks. Notably, nearly all surveyed insect farms are located in areas with intermediate to high invasion risks, underscoring the urgent need for stringent biosecurity measures in existing farms and strategic species selection for future farms. By providing a robust methodology and guidelines, our work offers a foundation for policymakers and industry stakeholders to ensure sustainable insect farming and critical insights into this understudied field.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Predicting the global economic costs of biological invasions by tetrapods

Globalisation has steadily accelerated rates of biological invasions worldwide, leading to widespread environmental perturbations that often translate into rapidly expanding socioeconomic costs. Although such monetary costs can be estimated based on the observed effects of invasions, the pathways that lead invasive species to become economically impactful remain poorly understood. Here, we implement the first global-scale test of the hypothesis that adaptive traits that influence demographic resilience predict economic costs, using invasive terrestrial vertebrates as models given their rising impacts and well-catalogued characteristics. Our results reveal that total global costs of invasive tetrapods are conservatively in the tens of billions of dollars, with the vast majority due to damage costs from invasive mammals. These monetary impacts are predicted by longevity, female maturation age, diet and invasional pathway traits, although the directionality of predicted economic impacts also varied by trait across classes. Alarmingly, costs remain unknown for >90% of recorded established alien tetrapods worldwide, and across the majority of invaded countries. These huge socio-economic costs demonstrate the necessity of mitigating tetrapod invasions and filling knowledge gaps. Effective identification of traits predictive of costs among and within these groups can facilitate the prioritisation of resources to efficiently target the most damaging existing and emerging invasive tetrapod species.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

The economic burden of protecting islands from invasive alien species

Biological invasions represent a key threat to island ecosystems, with pronounced impacts across environments and economies. The ecological impacts have received substantial focus, but the economic costs have lacked synthesis at spatial and temporal scales. Here we utilise the InvaCost database, the most comprehensive global assessment of published economic costs of invasive species, to assess reported spend by cost types and socioeconomic sectors, and to examine temporal trends in spending, across islands that differ in their political geography - nation states, overseas territories or offshore islands of continental countries. We based this assessment on 1473 unique cost entries comprising 2914 annual costs totalling almost US$100 million in area-corrected costs between 1965-2020. We find that offshore islands of continental countries incur the greatest total and management costs. However, nation states incurred the greatest damage costs whilst substantially financing management actions, and spent an overall greater proportion of their GDP. In contrast, spending within overseas territories was significantly lower in all respects. The most impacted sector was authorities and stakeholders, demonstrating the key role of government in addressing island invasions. Temporal trends revealed continual increases in spending across all island types. This likely reflects ongoing introduction rates globally alongside an increased recognition of the importance of islands as biodiversity hotspots, and an appetite to tackle invasive species at larger and more socially complex scales. However, the high economic costs of invasions on islands substantiates the need to prevent them in order to avoid this dire threat to biodiversity and its burden on limited conservation resources.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Economic costs of biological invasions in the United States

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 1960-1969 to $21.08 billion annually between 2010-2020. 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.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Capacity of countries to reduce biological invasions

The extent and impacts of biological invasions on biodiversity are largely shaped by an array of socio-ecological predictors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet a global synthetic perspective of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how a set of five socio-ecological predictors (Governance, Trade, Environmental Performance, Lifestyle and Education, Innovation) explain i) country-level established alien species (EAS) richness of eight taxonomic groups, and ii) country capacity to prevent and manage biological invasions and their impacts. Trade and Governance together best predicted the average EAS richness, increasing variance explained by up to 54% compared to models based on climatic and spatial variables only. Country-level EAS richness increased strongly with Trade, whereas high level of Governance resulted in lower EAS richness. Historical (1996) levels of Governance and Trade better explained response variables than current (2015) levels. Thus, our results reveal a historical legacy of these two predictors with profound implications for the future of biological invasions. We therefore used Governance and Trade to define a two-dimensional socio-economic space in which the position of a country captures its capacity to address issues of biological invasions. Our results provide novel insights into the complex relationship between socio-ecological predictors and biological invasions. Further, we highlight the need for designing better policies and management measures for alien species, and for integrating biological invasions in global environmental scenarios.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Analysing global economic costs of invasive alien species with the invacost R package

O_LIThe reported costs of invasive alien species from the global database InvaCost are heterogenous and cover different spatio-temporal scales. A standard procedure for aggregating invasive species cost estimates is necessary to ensure the repeatability and comparativeness of studies. C_LIO_LIWe introduce here the invacost R package, an open-source software designed to query and analyse the InvaCost database. We illustrate this package and its framework with cost data associated with invasive alien invertebrates. C_LIO_LIFirst, the invacost package provides updates of this dynamic database directly in the analytical environment R. Second, it helps understand the heteregoneous nature of monetary cost data for invasive species, processes to harmonize the data, and the inherent biases associated with such data. Third, it readily provides complementary methods to investigate the costs of invasive species at different scales, all the while accounting for econometric statistical issues. C_LIO_LIThis tool will be useful for scientists working on invasive alien species, by (i) facilitating access to and use of this multi-disciplinary data resource and (ii) providing a standard procedure which will facilitate reproducibility and comparability among studies, one of the major critics of this topic until now. It should facilitate further interdisciplinary works including economists and invasion ecology researchers. C_LI

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Societal attention toward extinction threats

Public attention and interest in the fate of endangered species is a crucial prerequisite for effective conservation programs. Societal awareness and values will largely determine whether conservation initiatives receive necessary support and lead to adequate policy change. Using text data mining, we assessed general public attention toward climate change and biological invasions, which represent two key threats for endangered amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species in three European countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). Our analysis revealed that public attention patterns differed among species groups and countries but was globally higher for climate change than for biological invasions. Both threats received better recognition in threatened than in non-threatened species, as well as in native species than in species from other countries and regions. The relative level of attention toward the two threats corresponded well with the listing of the threats and their severity within the IUCN Red List. We conclude that more efficient communication regarding the threat from biological invasions should be developed, and that conservation practitioners should take advantage of the existing attention toward the threat of climate change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

On the overlap between scientific and societal taxonomic attention - insights for conservation

Attention directed at different species by society and science is particularly relevant within the field of conservation, as societal preferences will strongly impact support for conservation initiatives and their success. Here, we assess the association between societal and research interests in four charismatic and threatened species groups, derived from a range of different online sources and social media platforms as well as scientific publications. We found a high level of concordance between scientific and societal taxonomic attention, which was consistent among assessed species groups and media sources. Results indicate that research is apparently not as disconnected from the interests of society as it is often reproached, and that societal support for current research objectives should be adequate. While the high degree of similarity between scientific and societal interest is both striking and satisfying, the dissimilarities are also interesting, as new scientific findings may constitute a constant source of novel interest for the society.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Gender-biased perceptions of important ecology articles

Gender bias is still unfortunately rife in the sciences, and men co-author most articles (> 70%) in ecology. Whether ecologists subconsciously rate the quality of their peers work more favourably if men are the dominant co-authors is still unclear. To test this hypothesis, we examined how expert ecologists ranked important ecology articles based on a previously compiled list. Women proposed articles with a higher average proportion of women co-authors (0.18) than did men proposers (0.07). For the 100 top-ranked articles, women voters placed more emphasis on articles co-authored by women (0.06) than did men (0.02). However, women voters were still biased because they ranked men-dominated articles more highly, albeit not by as much as men did. This effect disappeared after testing read-only articles. This indicates a persistent, subconscious bias that men-dominated articles are considered to be of higher quality before actual assessment. We add that ecologists need to examine their own subconscious biases when appointing students, hiring staff, and choosing colleagues with whom to publish.

ecology↗