Is terrestrial plant import from E ast A sia into countries in the EPPO region a potential pathway for new emerging invasive alien plants?

Pathway analysis represents an effective means of identifying emerging invasive alien species. For plants, a significant number of invasions have been caused by plant species originally voluntary introduced as ornamentals. The pathway analysis for terrestrial ornamental plants imported from E ast A sia has been undertaken to provide information on the imports and to identify emerging terrestrial invasive alien plants. Data for terrestrial ornamental plants imported from E ast A sia into A ustria, F rance, I taly, the N etherlands and T urkey was assembled at the genus level. Thousands of species of plants for planting are imported from E ast A sia in very large volumes. However, despite the fact that the data could only been analyzed at the genus level, it is considered that only a very limited number of taxa would become invasive. The potentially invasive alien species are already widely available in European nurseries and are principally produced within the E uropean U nion.