URI biologist, colleagues warn of peril from biological invasions as White House proposes to halve funding

KINGSTON, R.I. – April 30, 2019 – As the Trump Administration prepares to cut in half the budget for the National Invasive Species Council, a group of invasive species experts led by a University of Rhode Island professor has issued a warning about the growing peril of biological invasions and the increasing threat they pose to the economy, environment, public health and national security.

“Defunding invasion policy and management at the federal level at a time when the rate of invasions into the U.S. are increasing and is exacerbated by climate change is reckless and puts the economic well-being, health and natural capital of U.S. citizens at risk,” said Laura Meyerson, URI professor of natural resources science.

Along with colleagues James Carlton, professor of marine sciences emeritus at Williams College, David Lodge, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University, and Daniel Simberloff, the Nancy Gore Hunger Professor at the University of Tennessee, Meyerson published an editorial in this week’s edition of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. In it they note that biological invasions in the United States “remain an unrelenting environmental and economic calamity impacting all segments of society.”