Quantitative horizon scanning identifies high-priority wood-boring beetle pests for regulatory review in Canada

Abstract

Invasive wood-boring beetles are a significant threat to forests, imposing high economic and environmental costs. With their high global biodiversity, it is difficult to assess all wood-boring beetles potential to invade a particular region. Horizon scanning can create short-lists of high priority pests for risk assessment by National Plant Protection Organizations; however, it is often resource-intensive, creating potential blind spots due to resource constraints. Here, we use a multi-layered horizon scan, including self-organizing maps and climate suitability modelling combined with rapid risk assessment, to produce a short-list of wood-boring beetles for regulatory review in Canada. This method relies on open-source data and could be applicable to any country. From an initial list of 10,824 species with available georeferenced observations, our method yielded a short-list of 24 species. The method led to the regulation of two additional wood-boring beetles in Canada, demonstrating its real-world applicability in accelerating the regulation of quarantine pests. Several already-regulated species were also identified, suggesting consistency with existing risk identification and assessment procedures. The limitations on the method are the availability of biologically meaningful species occurrence data, relevance of climate norms for species establishment, and availability of data for rapid risk assessment.