- The Indian Alien Flora Information Database (ILORA) is a freely available online resource with detailed information about the ecological and socio-economic attributes of more than 1700 invasive plant species in India.
- The trade records on the database, on India’s invasive plants, reveal poor biosecurity infrastructure for invasives.
- The database aims to add state-specific data on the proliferation and impact of invasive plants, a risk assessment score for each species, and regional language information that can unlock traditional knowledge.
Invasive alien plants are species that do not occur naturally but have been introduced into a region, where they outcompete native species. Today, ‘invasive plants’ is a buzzword in conservation; however, until a few years ago, India lacked a consolidated database of alien flora.
Around mid-2019, plant ecologist Achyut Kumar Banerjee began a collaborative venture with fellow invasive biologists in India to set up a comprehensive database for alien flora in the country. After a year of intensive research, the Indian Alien Flora Information Database (ILORA) was born was born in September 2020.
In this interview with Mongabay-India, Banerjee sheds light on the science of plant invasion and tells us why it is crucial to have a single forum for invasive plant species in India.
Mongabay: Could you tell us about the origins of ILORA?
Achyut Banerjee: I had just completed my PhD and had moved out of India. At the time, I was collaborating with a few scientists back home on ornamental plant invasion in the country, when we stumbled upon a familiar hurdle: a lack of data on Indian alien flora. Of course, there was data on what we call “charismatic” invasive species, the popular ones, such as Lantana camara and Parthenium hysterophorus. But for most of the other species, the data were rare.
There were multiple checklists available in India, but no databases with individual species information. The primary objective of ILORA was to consolidate all the available information on Indian alien flora species in one place.
We began curating data from multiple sources — national, regional, and global checklists — for all the alien flora present in India. First, we identified the species that are actually present in India, and then we separated the foreign or alien species from those that are native. The first version of ILORA had a total of 1,747 plant species.
Mongabay: How did you categorise alien flora? Did you consider biogeographic information when conferring their invasion status?
Achyut Banerjee: Once we had a consolidated list of alien species, we began categorising them based on the information obtained from regional literature and herbarium databases.
There are three categories of alien flora — invasive, naturalised, and casual alien. Alien species that are spread across a large part of the country and are considered problematic are identified as ‘invasive’. Problematic in two senses, from an environmental aspect, as in how they impact other native plant species, and from an economic aspect, as in how they impact commercially viable plantations and agricultural systems, and their high management cost. The species with no reported impacts, that are surviving in the wild on their own, we call them ‘naturalised’, and the rest are considered ‘casual alien’ species.
However, during this exercise, we found various discrepancies. One paper would refer to a species as invasive, while another would identify it as naturalised. So, based on our literature research, we added a confidence score (a numerical value that indicates the likelihood of the prediction being correct) for each species categorisation.
What we also realised was that a species can be invasive in one part of the country and native or naturalised in another part of the country. For example, when a species is introduced from the Kashmir Himalayas to the Northeast Himalayas, while it is native to the former, it could be problematic for the latter. So within a country, we can have different levels of invasiveness. That is the next phase for ILORA — to have region-specific information for invasive species.
Mongabay: How much did you rely on global databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) database? How did you correlate them with Indian checklists?
Achyut Banerjee: We only considered global databases which have India-specific data resolution. The Global Register of Introduced Species (GRIIS), for example, has country-specific information, contributed to by Indian scientists and maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Similarly, the Global Naturalised Alien Flora (GloNAF) database, developed by the University of Konstanz in Germany, also had Indian contributors. Conversely, India is represented poorly in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) database.
Coming to national datasets, India’s first national-scale checklist was published in 2012 by Anzar A. Khuroo from the University of Kashmir. Then came Delhi University professor Inderjit’s checklist of naturalised alien flora, followed by the government, with the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) producing its own checklist. While there were overlaps, there were also huge discrepancies between the checklists. When Khuroo and fellow authors considered invasive and naturalised species as separate groups, Inderjit and team classified them both under naturalised species, resulting in widely different numbers. The former listed 225 invasive species, while the latter listed 400 naturalised species. In contrast, the NBA list focused on invasive species requiring priority management and recognised only 63 invasive species.
Our goal was to consolidate all the information on a single platform. We ensured that all data in ILORA is associated with its sources, allowing users to cross-check and validate the data before use.
ILORA also has a user submission system, where users can submit data (organised as per site standards) for all variables, including invasion status. The data will then undergo a thorough quality check before being added to the database, with proper acknowledgement to the contributor.
Mongabay: What were the challenges during the development of ILORA?
Achyut Banerjee: Our primary challenge, of course, was funding. We started ILORA from our own pocket. We hired a student researcher to help us consolidate all the information, developed an RShiny application, and published a paper on the database.
What we weren’t able to do was promote the database on platforms such as social media. That’s probably why we haven’t seen a jump in users over the last four to five years; the original paper citation is still very low compared to other checklist papers, but we are getting more and more news that people are using ILORA.
Recently, we learned that the Government of Tamil Nadu used our database to create their state-level alien flora checklist. Faculty and students from institutions such as IIT Bombay and ATREE have reached out to tell us that they use ILORA for their research. We will soon be highlighting these case studies on the ILORA website. We also urge readers to share their feedback and user experience with us.
We are still looking for dedicated funding and support to update and promote the project.
Mongabay: The ILORA database has had two major updates to include occurrence and trade data. What have these two builds taught you about the distribution and propagation of invasive plant species in India?
Achyut Banerjee: With ILORA version 1.1, we added occurrence data (where plant species can potentially occur or have been reported to occur) for all invasive and naturalised species. The team curated data from 3,140 published literature records and 357 herbarium sheets — mostly digital, but some of which we visited physically.
By adding 12,347 occurrence records for the 365 invasive and naturalised alien plant species of India, we supplemented the GBIF occurrence data by 60.75%. We also collected other parameters related to occurrence, such as climate data and ecosystem data.
In ILORA version 1.2, we mapped the trade data of India’s alien flora. The team collected 2,402 trade records for 204 non-native invasive and naturalised plant species, along with the information of 806 unique traders from 12 independent online nurseries and the three major e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, Flipkart, and IndiaMART. The research has been communicated to an international journal, where it is currently under review. We will share the findings and make the data public as soon as the paper gets published.
The trade data revealed some disturbing trends. We found that anyone can buy invasive species such as Parthenium and Lantana from online nurseries at cheap prices. Second, India’s list of quarantine plants (regulated for import into the country) includes only 57 species (mostly hosts of important pests or diseases of arable crops and forestry), but does not include any invasive alien plant species, not even the popular ones. For example, one can easily bring Mikania micrantha (known as the mile-a-minute weed for how quickly it can spread) into the country.
We plan to recommend international and domestic trading regulations based on our findings once the paper is published.
Mongabay: What has been the feedback from the user community?
Achyut Banerjee: Along with the positive responses, we have received a steady stream of constructive feedback. Users have questioned the invasive status of numerous species, which we need to cross-check and update.
The database also requires wider updates, such as species names — water hyacinth is no longer Eichhornia crassipes, it is Pontederia crassipes. We also hope to provide continuous updates on occurrence data. Before version 1.1, GBIF was the primary source of occurrence data; however, researchers are now using ILORA as additional data along with GBIF.
Mongabay: What are the immediate future goals for ILORA?
Achyut Banerjee: Like I mentioned, our first objective is to introduce state-level information regarding the invasive status of alien flora in the country. Second, we want to introduce more regional language information; there is vast traditional knowledge to be unlocked, which can help populate and enrich the database.
We would also like to include the economic impacts of invasive plant species, which are currently missing on ILORA. We are also working on introducing a risk assessment score for invasive species. While India does not have a risk assessment framework, we are in touch with international groups that have been developing their own frameworks.
The framework will consider the introduction history of a species, its environmental impact, and its socio-economic impact: for example, Lantana, which is very popular in the handicraft industry, and some communities depend on it for their livelihood. Considering all these different factors, we will propose a risk score for an individual invasive species, which can then inform policy recommendations.
The risk score, of course, will be context dependent. Low risk at one place does not automatically place the species on a safe list, as it can be problematic in another context.
Finally, we hope to collaborate with students, researchers and working professionals who are actively working on plant invasion in the country.
Read more: Looking at invasives beyond the ecological lens [Commentary]
Banner image: Portrait image courtesy of Achyut Kumar Banerjee. Asclepias curassavica, the tropical milkweed (right), observed growing naturally near Rachanahalli lake in Bengaluru. Image by Kesang Choden Bhutia.
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