Llewellyn C Foxcroft

South African National Parks, Kruger National Park and Centre for Invasion Biology, Dept. Botany & Zoology Stellenbosch University

Biological invasions are a threat to protected areas globally; however, the relative lack of studies quantifying the ecological impacts impairs informed decision-making. We selected three annual alien plants, widespread in the riparian habitats of the Kruger National Park, South Africa: Datura innoxia, Parthenium hysterophorus, and Xanthium strumar...

Asare-Nuamah et al. (2022) and Koffi et al. (2020) found that almost 90 per cent of their sampled farmers from Ghana used synthetic pesticides for fall armyworm control. Tambo et al. (2020) and Houngbo et al. (2020) also reported that 87 per cent and 91 per cent of sampled farmers in Rwanda and Benin, respectively, applied synthetic pesticides to c...

Case studies of the role of national and international networks and regional partnerships in the management of the Invasive Alien Species.

Oryctolagus cuniculus (rabbits) biological control in Australia.

Some examples of specific surveillance include the Mamalu Poepoe programme, which is coordinated through the Hawaii Invasive Species Council 1 targeting invasive ants, mosquitoes, coconut rhinoceros beetle and Africanized bees at airports (Kaufman & Atwood, 2019). The main objective of the programme was to provide baseline data on invasive ants at...

The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs) greatly assist in management strategies by providing global standards in plant health management. ISPMs cover a wide range of topics, including: pest risk analysis, surveillance, phytosanitary pest status, pest reporting, regulated pest l...

According to Island Conservation’s Database of Island Invasive Species Eradications (DIISE, 2018), there have been over 1,500 eradication attempts of vertebrate alien species. As a result, 38 mammal species have been eradicated, in almost 1,100 events, with an 88 per cent success rate on 798 islands followed by 9 bird species, in 22 events, with an...

Indigenous peoples may not use more western terms of “management” and “restoration” when working to change the impacts of invasive alien species in their country, landscapes and culturally and spiritually important places. Where Indigenous Peoples care for their traditional lands impacted by invasive alien species, they do not use scientific termin...

Species-based management technologies for Invasive Alien Species.

Executive summary 1. Substantial knowledge, options and experience in management of biological invasions exist at the regional, national and local levels (well established) {5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6}. Key challenges for the effective implementation of biological invasion management include developing appropriate policies and regulations to support m...

To eliminate hull biofouling and niche areas fouling, different tools and technologies have been developed in line with following the International Maritime Organization Guidelines on biofouling (The Marine Environment Protection Committee, 2011). Vessel in-water cleaning or treatment is recognized as an important and practical tool to maintain a v...

Summary of surveillance and diagnostic technologies for invasive alien species management.

Earth observation-remote sensing detection-Recent growth in personal mobile computing has led to improvements in size and energy efficiency of electronic sensor devices, enabling their deployment on small-sized animals. Dubbed "One Giant Leap for Wildlife Tracking", lightweight telemetric tags have been deployed on hummingbirds, pigeons, toucans, a...

Results of characterization of invasive alien species management by Indigenous Peoples and local communities based on 76 case studies (Table SM.5.1). Focus of management, ecosystems where management was conducted, managed taxa and motives for management were shown with the frequency of mention, frequency of percentages and percentage of cases repor...

Pathway surveillance tolls and technologies.

To identify factors that drive plant species richness in South-African savanna and explore their relative importance, we sampled plant communities across habitats difering in water availability, disturbance, and bedrock, using the Kruger National Park as a model system. We made plant inventories in 60 plots of 50 × 50 m, located in three distinct h...

It has been documented that the continual release of high numbers of biological control (biocontrol) agents for weeds increases the likelihood of agent establishment and has been shown to reduce the time between the first release and subsequent control of the target weed. Here we review the mass-rearing activities for weed biocontrol agents in Sout...

The negative impact of invasive alien plants (IAPs) in protected areas (PAs) is managed through control programmes, often using area‐based management, where identified IAPs in management units are controlled simultaneously. However, this approach has shortfalls, including the methods used to prioritise management units, spatial grain dependence and...

Human livelihoods and well-being in almost all regions of the world depend on taxa which are alien. Such taxa also, however, threaten human health, sustainable development, and biodiversity. Since it is not feasible or desirable to control all alien taxa, decision-makers increasingly rely on risk analyses to formalise the best available evidence of...

Protected areas play an important role as refuges from invasive species impacts on biodiversity. Within the MOSAIK (Monitoring Savanna Biodiversity in the Kruger National Park) project, plant species were recorded in a representative set of 60 plots, 50 × 50 m in size, across the entire KNP, distributed so as to cover a range of savanna habitats, i...

Establishing and managing protected areas (national parks, nature reserves and other sites of conservation value) represent the most common approach to conserving species and ecosystems, but these areas are vulnerable to global environmental change. Recently, Golden Kroner et al. (2019) suggested protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazett...

The family Cactaceae Juss. contains some of the most widespread and damaging invasive alien plant species in the world, with Australia (39 species), South Africa (35) and Spain (24) being the main hotspots of invasion. The Global Cactus Working Group (IOBC GCWG) was launched in 2015 to improve international collaboration and identify key actions th...

Following their establishment in new communities, invasive species may cause evolutionary changes in resident native species. This is clearly true for phytophagous insects, which may adapt rapidly when utilising abundant and widespread introduced hosts. The balloon vines Cardiospermumhalicacabum and C.grandiflorum were introduced to South Africa ap...

In many protected areas in South Africa, invasive Australian Acacia species pose on-going management challenges, perpetuating high long-term management costs. Due to limited availability of resources, conservation actions need to be prioritised within and across Protected Areas (PA). We draw on comprehensive datasets spanning over 20 years from the...

In 2018, Koedoe celebrated an unbroken publication record of 60 years. From uncertain beginnings in 1958, it is now a mature and important internationally recognised scientific journal focussing on conservation and science in national parks in South Africa and beyond into the African continent. After an overview of the emergence of national parks i...

Protected areas face mounting pressures, including invasion by alien plant species. Scientifically sound information is required to advise invasive species management strategies, where early detection and rapid response is particularly important. One approach to this is to determine: (i) the relative importance of pathways of invasion by which a sp...

This report presents a framework for analysing the risk of alien taxa under South Africa's National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act of 2004, and the Alien and Invasive Species Regulations of 2014. While the report was initially designed to meet a specific South Africa need, the risk analysis processes developed can, we believe, be transf...

Successful long-term invasive alien plant control programmes rely on alien plant distribution and abundance data to assess, prioritise, implement and monitor the efficacy of the programme. Here we assess the impact of data accuracy using the alien plant programme in Table Mountain National Park, South Africa. A systematic plot-based survey method w...

Study of plant metabolome is a growing field of science that catalogs vast biochemical and functional diversity of phytochemicals. However, collecting and storing samples of plant metabolome, sharing these samples across the scientific community and making them compatible with bioactivity assays presents significant challenges to the advancement of...

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates from Chromolaena odorata RAMES libraries after LCMS analyses following 4 and 12 month storage at -20°C. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates and extracts from Moringa oleifera. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates from Datura inoxia RAMES libraries after LCMS analyses following 4 and 12 month storage at -20°C. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates and extracts from Theobroma cacao. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates and extracts from Artemisia dracunculus. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates from Datura stramonium RAMES libraries after LCMS analyses following 4 and 12 month storage at -20°C. (PDF)

Comparative total ion current chromatograms (MS scanning mode from m/z 100 to m/z 1000) of eluates and extracts from Coffea arabica. (PDF)

Alien plants were first recorded in 1937 in the 2 million ha Kruger National Park (KNP, a savanna protected area in South Africa), and attempts to control them began in the mid-1950s. The invasive alien plant control program expanded substantially in the late 1990s, but its overall efficacy has not been determined. We present an assessment of invas...

Invasive alien species are a major problem for managers of protected areas (PAs) worldwide. Until the 1980s biological invasions were widely considered to be largely confined to anthropogenically disturbed sites and the widespread disruption of ecosystems in PAs by invasive species was not globally perceived as a major threat. A working group of th...

Objectives: A core objective in South African National Parks (SANParks) is biodiversity conservation and the maintenance of functional ecosystems, which is compromised by alien species invasions. The 2016 Alien and Invasive Species Regulations of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEM:BA) requires landowners to develop managem...

The African Wildcat is listed as Least Concern because it is the most common and widely distributed wild felid within the assessment region. However, extensive hybridisation and introgression with domestic cats across its global distribution range has been recorded. Recent studies suggest lower levels of introgression than expected in South Africa....

Governments charge their conservation agencies to safeguard biodiversity through protected areas and threat mitigation. Increasingly, conservation management and policy need to be supported by rigorous evidence provided by science. As such, institutional arrangements should consider and enable effective scientific research and information dissemina...

Hybridization between domestic and wild animals is a major concern for biodiversity conservation, and as habitats become increasingly fragmented, conserving biodiversity at all levels, including genetic, becomes increasingly important. Except for tropical forests and true deserts, African wildcats occur across the African continent; however, almost...

Invasive alien plants have a long history of establishment in the national parks of South Africa.In particular, Opuntia stricta (sour prickly pear) has invaded several protected areas in thecountry, threatening the biodiversity conservation mandate of these conservation areas. Thisarticle focuses on the economic estimation of O. stricta’s negative...

Invasive alien plants have a long history of establishment in the national parks of South Africa.In particular, Opuntia stricta (sour prickly pear) has invaded several protected areas in thecountry, threatening the biodiversity conservation mandate of these conservation areas. Thisarticle focuses on the economic estimation of O. stricta’s negative...

The islands of the Western Indian Ocean are well known for their unique biodiversity. However, much of the native habitat has been destroyed and the remainder is threatened by invasive alien species. In this review we assessed the different protected area systems, synthesised the history of invasive alien plants and actions against them, and compar...

This paper explores how a lack of taxonomic expertise, and by implication a dearth of taxonomic products such as identification tools, has hindered progress in understanding andmanaging biological invasions. It also explores how the taxonomic endeavour could benefit from studies of invasive species. We review the literature on the current situation...

Phrases like “invasive species pose significant threats to biodiversity…” are often used to justify studying and managing biological invasions. Most biologists agree that this is true and quantitative studies support this assertion. Protected areas are the foundation of conservation initiatives in many parts of the world, and are an essential compo...

Protected areas in Africa are global conservation icons, attracting millions of tourists a year. However, these areas are being threatened by a growing human population making increasing demands on the natural capitol being conserved. Moreover, global environmental change, of which biological invasions are a key concern, pose significant threats to...

The potential threats posed by biological invasions are widely appreciated, but the state of knowledge and level of management of invasive alien plants in protected areas differs considerably across the world. Research done on nature reserves as part of the international SCOPE programme on biological invasions in the 1980s showed the vulnerability...

There are numerous excellent volumes on the topic of biological invasions, some of which deal with conservation-related issues to varying degrees. Almost 30 years since the last global assessment of alien plant invasions in protected areas during the SCOPE programme of the 1980s, the present book aims to provide a synthesis of the current state of...

Efficient management of invasive alien plants requires robust and cost-efficient methods for measuring the abundance and spatial structure of invasive alien plants with sufficient accuracy. Here, we present such a monitoring method using ad hoc presence-absence records that are routinely collected for various management and research needs in Kruger...

This paper explores how a lack of taxonomic expertise, and by implication a dearth of taxonomic products such as identification tools, has hindered progress in understanding and managing biological invasions. It also explores how the taxonomic endeavour could benefit from studies of invasive species. We review the literature on the current situatio...

Invasive plants pose substantial threats to protected areas globally. Although management can limit impacts, spread and reinvasion from neighbouring areas into protected areas are a major and an on-going problem for land managers. However, identifying the main sources of propagules and the dimensions of invasion pathways is challenging. Th is study...

Understanding the drivers of biological invasions, across taxa and regions, is important for designing appropriate management interventions. However there has been no work that has examined potential drivers of both plant and animal invasions, for both species considered to be aliens and those that are invasive. We use South Africa's national park...

The islands of the Western Indian Ocean are well known for their unique biodiversity. However, much of the native habitat has been destroyed and the remainder is threatened by invasive alien species. In this review we assessed the different protected area systems, synthesised the history of invasive alien plants and actions against them, and compar...

Lantana camara L. (sensu lato) has a wide range of impacts throughout its global invasive range. Here we review the mechanisms driving its invasion dynamics in South Africa at national (biome, habitat) and regional (within a protected area) scales. Although only three introduction events into South Africa have been recorded (the earliest in 1858),...

Characteristics for the six focal species used in this study. (DOCX)

Overcoming boundaries is crucial for incursion of alien plant species and their successful naturalization and invasion within protected areas. Previous work showed that in Kruger National Park, South Africa, this process can be quantified and that factors determining the incursion of invasive species can be identified and predicted confidently. Her...

There is a paucity of studies examining direct impacts of introduced alien species on biodiversity, a key need for motivating for alien species control in conservation areas. The introduced prickly pear (Opuntia stricta) has invaded some 35 000 ha of Kruger National Park. We investigated the effect of O. stricta on beetle and spider species assembl...

There is a paucity of studies examining direct impacts of introduced alien species on biodiversity, a key need for motivating for alien species control in conservation areas. The introduced prickly pear (Opuntia stricta) has invaded some 35 000 ha of Kruger National Park. We investigated the effect of O. stricta on beetle and spider species assembl...

The Editorial presents the focus, scope, policies, and the inaugural issue of NeoBiota, a new open access peer-reviewed journal of biological invasions. The new journal NeoBiota is a continuation of the former NEOBIOTA publication series. The journal will deal with all aspects of invasion biology and impose no restrictions on manuscript size neithe...

Adaptive management theory has attracted substantial interest in recent years, in natural resource management in general and also for invasive alien species management. However, whilst many theoretical and conceptual advances have been made, documented cases of practical applications are rare. Coupling invasive species management components with ad...

Adaptive management is an appealing approach to deal with inherent uncertainty in complex and interactive social-ecological systems (Holling 2001; Rogers 2003). In short, adaptive management is about learning-by-doing in a scientific way, adapting behaviour and overall direction as new information becomes available. It provides a structured way for...

1. Monitoring the abundance and spatial structure of invasive alien plant populations is important for designing and measuring the efficacy of long-term management strategies. However, methods for monitoring over large areas with minimum sampling effort, but with sufficient accuracy, are lacking. Although sophisticated sampling techniques are avail...

1. Monitoring the abundance and spatial structure of invasive alien plant populations is important for designing and measuring the efficacy of long-term management strategies. However, methods for monitoring over large areas with minimum sampling effort, but with sufficient accuracy, are lacking. Although sophisticated sampling techniques are avail...

Numerous mechanisms driving alien plant invasions have been described in a rapidly growing body of literature. However these are frequently case specific, making generalizations across species and systems difficult. A number of conceptual approaches have been proposed to help synthesize the literature, stimulating healthy debate among scientists. W...