Document variety of Asian hornet sightings in UK – as report highlights enormous worldwide price of invasive species

A document variety of Asian hornet sightings have been reported within the UK to date this yr, figures present.

There have been 22 confirmed sightings of the non-native species to date in 2023, based on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

That is greater than the earlier six years mixed – and greater than ten instances the quantity sighted final yr.

While Asian hornets are thought-about no better threat to human well being than different wasps or hornets, they’re predators of native bees and wasps.

It comes as a landmark report by the United Nations (UN) warns that invasive species are costing the world financial system not less than $423bn (£336bn) a yr.

The report additionally warns that invasive species are travelling world wide at “unprecedented rates” due to people, and are threatening native crops and animals with extinction.

‘The tip of the iceberg’

Published by the UN’s Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the report has discovered that greater than 37,000 “alien species” have been launched by many human actions to areas and biomes world wide.

Of these, greater than 3,500 are reported to have had damaging impacts on their non-native environments – and are subsequently classed as “invasive alien species”.

The report, revealed on Monday, additionally warns that new alien species are being recorded at an unprecedented fee of roughly 200 annually.

Meanwhile, the worldwide financial price of invasive alien species has not less than quadrupled each decade since 1970, based on the authors of the report, who’ve described the determine as “a huge underestimate” and “the tip of an iceberg”.

One main concern highlighted within the report, compiled from analysis by 86 scientists from 49 international locations, is the influence on native species.

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It warns that invasive alien species have contributed solely or alongside different drivers to 60% of recorded international extinctions – and are the one driver in 16% of the documented international animal and plant extinctions.

Governments world wide have dedicated to defending 30% of the Earth’s land and seas for nature by 2030, and 143 of them have authorized the brand new IPBES report as offering a few of the scientific information in direction of attaining this purpose.

Professor Helen Roy, of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and one of many report’s co-chairs, stated invasive species might be mitigated “through effective management”.

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“But if they do reach new areas, then being prepared and having early detection and rapid response is absolutely critical.

“Of course, extinction is such an essential factor to be contemplating, but additionally it is actually essential to consider the extinction of interactions, when one species is displacing one other or decreasing its numbers to such very low abundance.

“We are causing ecological changes that perhaps will lead to really quite unpredictable outcomes in terms of the functioning of these ecosystems and the benefits we receive from them.”

Reporting sightings

The water hyacinth, an aquatic plant native to South America however now discovered on all continents on the earth apart from Antarctica, was discovered to be some of the widespread invasive alien species worldwide.

Other notably profitable invasive species embrace the black rat and the harlequin ladybird.

In the UK, the North American gray squirrel has pushed the native purple squirrel to the fringes of the British Isles, outcompeting it for meals whereas carrying a illness deadly to the purple squirrel however which doesn’t have an effect on the gray squirrel.

Other invasive species which have prompted concern embrace the Himalayan-native rhododendron – a plant standard with gardeners however which may harbour fungus lethal to different crops – and large hogweed, which may trigger nasty blisters on the pores and skin of people unlucky sufficient to brush previous it.

Scientists have additionally warned that local weather change might make extra beneficial circumstances for invasive species, such because the Asian hornet, sooner or later.

The GB Non-Native Species Secretariat urges anybody who suspects they’ve seen an Asian hornet or a nest within the UK to report it with {a photograph} and site – both through the Asian Hornet Watch app or by e mail.

They urge explicit vigilance round southern areas of England and Wales, in addition to round main ports.

The hornets, first noticed within the UK in 2016, are significantly bigger than native wasps and have a particular black higher stomach.