The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one” he said “The chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million to one ... But still, they come! Jeff Wayne, Eve of the War – part of the musical version of the War of the Worlds.

Red Herring #5 and its Consequences
Upon hearing the word “alien”, most people conjure up an image of something extra-terrestrial – UFOs, ET or perhaps little green men such as Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons (as shown in the above cartoon). Perhaps they will whistle the Jeff Wayne’s ditty précised above. But, unless the person belongs to the small select world of biological invasions specialists, they are unlikely to think of… species introduced into new ecosystems directly or indirectly by people that increase in density and/or spread, to threaten ecosystems, habitats or species with economic, social or environmental harm!!

But even though the chances of anyone thinking of non-native species as aliens are practically a million to one … still they (the cognoscenti) come… to use the ‘A-word’. Unfortunately the term Invasive Alien Species (IAS) is with us now and it is not going away. So why do I feel so strongly about this “A-bomb?”

My first concern is that the use of the word alien causes confusion – a classic red herring. When the word alien is brought up for the first time during meetings I have facilitated, people inevitably talk about little green men; sometimes as a flippant aside, sometimes because they have an interest in extra-terrestrial life, and sometimes because they share my concern about the A-word being a red herring.

To be honest, such discussions are more water bomb than atomic bomb when you have a few minutes available for the bomb disposal process. My approach is to explain that the term 'Invasive Alien Species' is widely used in the discipline so we need to be aware of its existence. I then introduce my preferred alternatives such as 'exotic invasive species', a term I don’t care that much for either - because the word exotic conjures up stereotypically positive images (smiling twenty-somethings sipping piña coladas while lounging in a hammock under the tropical sun, … you get the picture), or 'non-native invasive species' – my personal preference. But ideally I would simply use the term 'invasive species' to which you can add non-native or native whenever pertinent (more on that later).

Job done? Well not quite. The problem is that the A-word is so ubiquitous in the scientific literature that it ends up being passed on unadulterated when communicating with non-experts. Without an explanation of the kind given above, the previously contained red herring can once more rear its ugly head. The narrator Edward Norton uses the term invasive alien species throughout the National Geographic documentary Strange Days on Planet Earth – Invaders, a programme targeted at a lay audience. Postings from those who were clearly confused and distracted by the A-word peppered the comments section of YouTube.  Typical comments included I think they need to be careful when calling plants "aliens" because ... plants aren't aliens....., and I didn’t know termites were from another planets and there invading human civilization using highly complicated military tactics. Oh wait.” And “wtf with the term alien, dude. They evolved within this planet not from outer space...get it?

Things can get even more confusing when the word 'alien' is translated into different languages. Believe me; I have seen invasive alien species translated into les espèces envahissantes extraterrestres in the francophone world!!

My second, related, concern is the way in which the term invasive alien species or IAS has been used as a label for all invasive species, whether they are native or introduced. This is related to Red Herring #4 (Concern about species introductions is essentially racism) and the fact that some invasion biologists appear to pay insufficient attention to native species that can become invasive. In some cases it is necessary to distinguish between native and non-native invaders as this affects management. For instance, prevention at the national level will not be a part of the management toolkit for native invaders!

Some suggestions for addressing Red Herring #5
We are stuck with the A-word in certain quarters but it doesn't mean we should use it when communicating with lay audiences. Let’s try to raise awareness among experts of the fact that the word aliens does not work with the other 99.something percent of people who are not immersed in the world of biological invasions. Most biological invasions awareness-raising products produced nowadays do not use the A-word, which is encouraging. Explicit recognition of Red Herring #5 will help to reinforce this trend so that any references to 'aliens among us' are safely contained!

Red Herring #3 and its Consequences
Recipe for a new species ('speciation'): take some individuals of an existing species, move them to an isolated area, leave them to breed for many generations, allow them to adapt to the new environment… Result – new species. There are a few variations on this theme but this in essence is how speciation works. Example: Over many, many, many years a pigeon evolved into a dodo.

Recipe for species movement without evolving into a new species (range expansion): take some individuals of an existing species, move them to a new area that is not isolated, continue to move individuals of an existing species into the new area... Result – same species but with an expanded range. Example: Human beings who have spread throughout the world but we are still just one species.

Recipe for biological equilibrium ('dynamic equilibrium'): take some individuals of an existing species, move them to a new area, the new species increase in numbers and overuse resources, there is some premature death - perhaps from predation or disease or lack of food and/or migration, and new fluctuating (“dynamic”) equilibrium levels are reached. Example: The cyclical movement of wildebeest in the Serengeti and Masai Mara in Tanzania and Kenya.

So if species movement, which has been going on for as long as life itself, leads to new species, range expansion and dynamic equilibrium then what’s the difference between ‘natural’ species movement and human-induced biological invasions. Simply stated, there has been a dramatic change in the numbers of species moving and type of species movement compared to the situation in pre-human times.

Pimentel (2001) estimated that more than 400,000 species have been moved from one region of the Earth to another by human agency over the past 10 000 years – that’s a serious shuffling of the pack! So why does this frequency matter? In a nutshell, ecosystems just don’t have enough time to adapt. Imagine a species introduction as a pebble thrown into a pond. If you throw a single pebble into a pond it will cause ripples but the movement will settle down soon enough. If you continue to throw pebbles…, and rocks…, and boulders into the pond the water will be in a constant state of disturbance. It will never return to an equilibrium because it is never given the time to recover.

Some of these species (the ‘pebbles’ if you will) may have been able to colonise a recipient ecosystem without our help - I call this group the ‘couldhavegottheres’. But there is another group of species (the ‘boulders and rocks’) that would almost never have been introduced to certain places without our help. I call this group the ‘neverwouldhavegottheres’. Human action has enabled this group to overcome barriers that previously prevented them from getting to certain places. More often than not its the neverwouldhavegottheres that are the most  troublesome to the recipient ecosystem.

Couldhavegottheres include seeds and spores, insects and other invertebrates, birds and mammals, and reptiles that originate in places close to the recipient ecosystems. Neverwouldhavegottheres include rats, cats, mongooses and other ground-dwelling mammals that are brought to isolated oceanic islands; freshwater fish from Asia that are introduced to the Americas and vice versa; clams, mussels and crabs that are moved between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in ballast water; and species that have been separated for millions of years who can now colonise previously inaccessible seas through the Suez and Panama Canals.

Recipient ecosystems can take a real hammering when a new kind of species makes its entrance because species adapt to what is and was present and not to what has never been present.

So are biological invasions just a slightly accelerated version of business as usual?

In a single word… NO!

In a few words… NOT EVEN CLOSE!!

Some suggestions for addressing Red Herring #3
Fortunately this red herring is one of the easier ones to address - we need to clearly outline the differences between background (pre-human) and current species movement, both in terms of quantity (frequency) and quality (overcoming nature’s barriers) and the reasons why these changes can result in severe impacts if effective management measures are not taken. These ideas are simple to explain and once outlined often contribute to Ah-Ha moments. So that’s why rats are such a big deal on isolated islands! or Now I understand why you need to manage the movement of ballast water! are common rejoinders. 

All of this is biological invasions 101 for the cognoscenti but we, the so-called experts, forget that we take a great deal of our knowledge for granted. At all times we need to guard against the curse of knowledge when communicating with people from different backgrounds to ourselves.

Coming up next: Red Herring #4: Concern about species introductions is essentially racism - Species introductions, like human immigration is a positive thing and those who advocate managing the process are eco-fascists.

Reference
Pimentel, D. (2001). Agricultural invasions. In Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, vol. 1 (ed. S. A. Levin), pp. 71–83. San Diego, CA: Academic.

Red Herring #2 and its Consequences
The End Is Nigh proclaims the placard held aloft by the dishevelled old man who appears to be the (barely) living embodiment of his message. People do everything they can to avoid his gaze for fear that he will engage them in conversation. The guy with the placard is easy to caricature as one of society’s outcasts. But his views are not as marginal as you may think. A recent survey estimated that nearly four in 10 U.S. residents think that the severity of recent natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy is evidence the world is coming to an end!

So-called end-timers are a diverse group who can be found in the places of worship of various religions and cults, in the meetings of radical environmental organisations, in university bars debating the nature of reality, or in clubs partying like it’s 1999!

A lot of people have been looking forward to the end of the world, which has been nigh for some time now: early Christians  prophesied that the world would end on the first day of the year 500; in 1976 Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson predicted that the world would end in October or November 1982; apparently unabashed, Robertson then made a second prediction in 1990 that the world would be destroyed on April 29 2007; and recently millions held their breath on 21 December 2012, the day the ancient Mayan Calendar ended. This track record of failed prophesies appears to be no deterrent to the harbingers of doom!

So why is this belief in the end of days a Biological Invasions Red Herring? Well, conventional wisdom tells us that if you believe that the end is nigh you will have very little incentive to do anything about biological invasions, or indeed any other environmental or social issue. In some cases you may even welcome crises which could be interpreted as portents of a non-earthly paradise to come. Protecting our environment for future generations is perhaps not much of a motivation if you believe that there won’t be any future generations to protect!

Red Herring #2 is unlikely to be expressed very vocally at meetings in which biological invasions are discussed, but end-timer views may still be firmly held by some of the participants in these meetings. But more significant, is the fact that such views are likely to be prevalent among a large proportion of the general public upon whose support the effective management of biological invasions ultimately depends. 

Some suggestions for addressing Red Herring #2
Introduce this red herring but be respectful. People have deeply-held views and going on the offensive, getting aggressive or belittling others will only polarise discussions.

When it comes to those I call the “die hard end-timers”, there’s probably not a lot we can do to persuade them to care about biological invasions. Die hard end-timers are those who metaphorically chant:

     “What do we want?” 
     “The end of the world!” 
     “When do we want it?” 
     “Now!”

However, there is another (probably larger) group that I call the “arm’s length end-timers” – and they metaphorically chant:

     “What do we want?”
     “The end of the world” 
     “When do we want it?” 
     “Soon but not just yet!” 

In other words the end of the world is just beyond arm’s length. So the arm’s length end-timers still have a stake in the present and immediate future. Doing something about biological invasions can make sense to them if you emphasise the short and medium term benefits.  For instance preventing foot and mouth from establishing in UK in 2001 could have saved UK agriculture and associated activities about £3.1 billion (Thompson et al. 2002), California’s Mediterranean Fruit Fly Exclusion Program saves the state $1.4 billion a year in reduced crop yields and other costs and keeping many small islands malaria-free saves thousands of lives and immeasurably enhances people’s quality of life. 

And remember, most people have doubts and many people change their tune over time. The once nihilistic musicians Prince (life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last) is still partying well into his sixth decade and former Smiths front-man Morrissey (come Armageddon, come Armageddon, nuclear war) is no longer quite the angry man he used to be (if indeed he ever was!). Even Pat Roberson has extended the interval between the date on which he first makes his prediction of Armageddon and that of his chosen doomsday, from 6 years in 1976 to 17 years in 1990! 

So it is still worth sowing the seed that biological invasions matter and that we can do something about them. Not everybody will be receptive at first but the seed may germinate over time! 

Coming up next: Red Herring #3: It’s only natural - Species have always moved from place to place so what’s all the fuss about?

Reference
Thompson, D.,Muriel, P., Russell, D., Osborne, P., Bromley,A., Rowland, M., Creigh-Tyte, S. & C. Brown (2002). Economic costs of the foot and mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001. Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2002, 21 (3), 675-687.

The “but” in the middle of the cliché “simple but effective” implies that “simple but effective” is the exception to the rule – that rule being that “sophisticated” is mostly more effective than simple. For “sophisticated” read long and jargon-ridden reports, complicated statistics, tables and graphs, and the world’s most effective remedy for insomnia - the interminable PowerPoint presentation: things that I would never produce … except when I do!

A close relative of “sophisticated and effective” is the rarely stated, but often implicit, notion that some issues are just too complex for the proverbial man on the street to grasp. The assumption is that issues such as climate change, population growth and HIV/AIDS should be left to the experts while the rest of us can relax and watch Jerry Springer!

Another way of dealing with complex issues is to dumb them down – to be simplistic rather than simple. Dumbing down may be even more dangerous than the elitist stance outlined above. Dumbing down is the territory of those who are happy to selectively use facts to support a prejudice: climate change is a myth; family planning is impossible for members of certain religions; HIV and AIDS are rife throughout the whole of Africa.

Enter Hans Rosling, a wide-eyed, enthusiastic, charismatic, sword-swallowing Swedish Statistics Professor - an unlikely combination if you believe the stereotypes! Rosling, 64 years young, is passionate about data visualisation - crunching vast quantities of data into simple visual summaries that can inform everybody – real INFORM-ation. Through his Gapminder organisation, Rosling is harnessing the power of data visualisation to communicate the facts about global trends in international development to the 99.something percent of us who are not subject matter experts. In this way he aims to reduce prejudice concerning international development to help drive positive change. Classic Rosling presentations include 200 countries in 200 years in four minutes where he debunks the notion of a simple divide between the rich and poor, religions and babies where he shows that there is no relation between religion and the number of babies per woman, and my current favourite, Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine in which he communicates the drivers of  energy use and economic development in a way that anybody can understand.

With the explosive increase in data production and an ever-growing competition for our attention, we all need to find the most effective ways to communicate the information we generate. Hans Rosling, you have shown us that simple and effective must be our default setting!

I was inspired by Christopher Makau’s talk about the self-help group in Nairobi, Kenya that have turned a rubbish dump into a garden that is feeding more than 30 families. And how Kibera TV is showcasing this work globally. 

This YouTube video is an excerpt from Chris Anderson's TED Talk - How YouTube is driving innovation (see http://bit.ly/14clFH7 for the full talk). As Anderson emphasises in his talk, YouTube is the perfect vehicle for what he calls crowd accelerated innovation for which you need three things: a crowd (people who share a common interest), light (open visibility to see the best of what there is to offer) and desire (from social status, altruism, desire to be recognised, etc.). The web in general and YouTube in particular is providing a platform to amplify all three of these factors