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Pensoft Publishers, NeoBiota, (44), p. 1-25, 2019

DOI: 10.3897/neobiota.44.31650

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Consistency of impact assessment protocols for non-native species

Journal article published in 2019 by Pablo González-Moreno, Lorenzo Lazzaro, Montserrat Vilà, Cristina Preda, Tim Adriaens ORCID, Sven Bacher ORCID, Giuseppe Brundu ORCID, Gordon H. Copp, Franz Essl, Emili García-Berthou ORCID, Stelios Katsanevakis ORCID, Toril Loennechen Moen, Frances E. Lucy, Wolfgang Nentwig, Helen E. Roy and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Standardized tools are needed to identify and prioritize the most harmful non-native species (NNS). A plethora of assessment protocols have been developed to evaluate the current and potential impacts of non-native species, but consistency among them has received limited attention. To estimate the consistency across impact assessment protocols, 89 specialists in biological invasions used 11 protocols to screen 57 NNS (2614 assessments). We tested if the consistency in the impact scoring across assessors, quantified as the coefficient of variation (CV), was dependent on the characteristics of the protocol, the taxonomic group and the expertise of the assessor. Mean CV across assessors was 40%, with a maximum of 223%. CV was lower for protocols with a low number of score levels, which demanded high levels of expertise, and when the assessors had greater expertise on the assessed species. The similarity among protocols with respect to the final scores was higher when the protocols considered the same impact types. We conclude that all protocols led to considerable inconsistency among assessors. In order to improve consistency, we highlight the importance of selecting assessors with high expertise, providing clear guidelines and adequate training but also deriving final decisions collaboratively by consensus.