The use of iEcology and culturomics to advance invasion science

Abstract

The introduction of invasive alien species (IAS) represents a key stage in the invasion process and one where management measures, if applied early enough, are most cost-effective. Improved understanding of socioeconomic and ecological factors that are driving introduction events can improve IAS risk assessments and management effectiveness. However, the data on these early phases of invasion process are often not available, and obtaining them is costly, timeconsuming and often impossible. The workshop is organized within the project funded by the Czech Science Foundation, focused on harnessing large digital data sources with approaches from the emerging fields of conservation culturomics and iEcology, and on integrating them with existing data on species life history, distributions, introductions, and habitat and climatic data to develop an IAS introduction model. By integrating ecological and socioeconomic factors, this project will yield novel insights into the mechanisms influencing the invasion process.