As part of the new editorial policy of Botany Letters, announced in the Editorial of issue 1 this year, we are launching in this issue a new series of articles dedicated to Monographs about invasive plants in Europe. Although autoecological accounts are already published in the Biological Flora of the Journal of Ecology or in Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, they do not highlight specific features of invasive species and only focus on species present in the British Isles or in Central Europe. Other journals have special series on weeds, like in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science (The Biology of Canadian Weeds) or Plant Protection Quarterly (The Biology of Australian Weeds) but they are rather synthetical and focused at the national scale on other continents (North America, Oceania) with information that is not entirely relevant for Europe. Hence, there are currently no series of comprehensive reviews on invasive plant species at the scale of Europe. Yet, such monographs could be useful and are particularly timely with the ongoing implementation of a European regulation on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species (Regulation No. 1143/2014).
To add any species of EU concern to the list of regulated species, a risk assessment should be carried out and prove that the species has adverse impact on biodiversity and related ecosystems services and that concerted action at the Union level is required to prevent its introduction, establishment or spread. Since the middle of the 2000s, the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) has published risk assessments on dozens of invasive plant species. These assessments are in fact a thorough review of the biology, ecology and impacts of the species concerned. Although this pioneering work in Europe has allowed to list most of the invasive plants that will be included on the first list proposed for the Regulation no. 1143/2014, we think that such works deserve a broader dissemination through academic publications and we encourage risk assessors to consider publishing their works in Botany Letters. Of course, the series does not only intend to update and upgrade previous risk assessments, but more widely to allow invasion biologists to publish a summary of their works on a given species.
This series of articles will be a separate section published alongside the journal’s other articles. These accounts do not follow the structure of standard papers in the journal, but have their own format. They should present all aspects of the biology and ecology that are relevant to understanding the invasive behaviour of the described species. They typically include sections on: taxonomy, distribution (native and introduced range), history of introduction and spread, ecology (including preferred climate and habitats, responses to abiotic and biotic factors, ecological interactions), biology (including phenology, physiology and reproductive biology), impacts (both positive and negative) on biodiversity, agriculture and health, and management. For a detailed example, please see the first article of the series on Baccharis halimifolia L. published in this issue (Fried et al. 2016, p. 127). Manuscripts should not exceed 16,000 words including an abstract of 400 words maximum and at least five keywords.
The Editor of the Monographs on Invasive Plants in Europe, Guillaume Fried, is a botanist and weed ecologist at Anses, Montpellier, France. Please contact Guillaume Fried ([email protected]) with any queries regarding format and also offers of new accounts, which are always welcome.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Guillaume Fried is a weed ecologist working at the Plant Health Laboratory of Anses (French Agency for Food,Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety). His researches focus on improving risk assessment methodologies using trait-based approaches and plant community-level impact assessments. He published several books on arable weeds and invasive plants.