The global plant trade is spreading invasive species to Europe

By Amy Hinsley, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford
Silviu Petrovan, Senior Research Associate, Conservation Science, University of Cambridge

Back in 2016, one of us (Silviu Petrovan) was asked to identify a live frog found in a shipment of roses in Sheffield, England. It certainly wasn’t any species found in Europe: Silviu thought he had been pranked.

But with help from Ecuadorian and Colombian scientists, he was soon able to identify it as a North Andean tree frog. This species is found only in a few areas in the highlands of Colombia including, crucially, a region known for its flower-growing.

This sudden realisation that cut flowers are being shipped from Colombia via Ecuador to Britain, potentially with…

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