Regulated Plants of the
United States Harmful to European Countries
By TeMarChi
Abstract
International trade
moves plants globally, and trade regulations have been developed to prevent the
movement of pest plants. Harmful plant species of European countries were
examined through the United States Department of Agriculture's Phytosanitary Export Database of the Phytosanitary
Certificate Issuance & Tracking System. Groups of countries work together to determine
what plants are termed harmful. This provides a glance at the information
available on PCIT.
Introduction
Plants have been
transported all across the world through international commerce. This included
the movement of plants whether they were or were not transported intentionally.
Unwanted plants have established in areas introduced. By out competing the
native and crop plants, introduced plants have caused economic problems
including damages to the environment and agriculture. To help prevent
introduction of damaging plants, regulations have been placed on international
commerce.
International trade
regulations are determined at the country/territory level. The World Trade
Organization was formed to help facilitate the opportunity and fairness for
international trade and associated trade regulations. Member countries of this
organization have decided they will take phytosanitary measures, measures to
prevent the movement of agricultural pest and pathogens, including pest plants.
Countries have developed programs with personnel to oversee the phytosanitary
activities.
The United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the program developed to handle
phytosanitary issues involving the international trade of plants in the U.S. The
USDA created a database of regulations between the U.S. and other countries
called the Phytosanitary Export Database (PExD) of the Phytosanitary
Certificate Issuance & Tracking System (USDA 2016). Among accepting
requests, performing inspections, updating regulations, and document tracking,
this system is available to inform exporters of regulations for plant exports
from the U.S.
The objectives of this
article is to review plants considered harmful in international trade of U.S.
export into European countries through the use of PCIT.
Methods
A 2015 world map
shapefile was used in ArcGIS 10.2 that included the shape and name of countries
(ESRI 2015). A list of European countries was obtained from Wikipedia (2016). Harmful
plants for each country was gathered through the Phytosanitary Export Database
(PExD, USDA 2016). The term “Harmful” is used within PCIT for species of U.S.
export concern. Usually a plant species may not be shipped from the U.S. to
another country if it is listed under “Harmful Organism” for that country. A
database was created in a spreadsheet with European countries that matched the
map, Wikipedia list, and PExD. The database contained entries with country names
and harmful plants. The database information was joined to the map using the
ArcGIS join and relate functions. The database and map were examined.
Results
The project database
contain 224 entries of 51 different European countries or territories (Table 1)
with 38 different listed harmful plants (Table 2). Seven countries did not list
any harmful plant species. The most widely accepted harmful plant was Arceuthobium spp. found for 35 different
countries (Figure 1). Countries that had Arceuthobium
spp. listed did not have any other harmful plant species listings, except
Turkey with one additional. Other species listed were found in 8 or fewer
countries. The Ukraine had the most listed harmful plants at 25 species. Five
countries have the same harmful plant regulations for 23 species, I term East Group. Species
listed by the East Group and Ukraine were similar to Russia and Georgia. Russia
had fewer species listed at 17. Some of the species listed for Georgia were the
same as that of those previously mentioned, some of the species were different.
Iceland listed a species unique compared to other country regulations.
Table 1. European
countries and territories and associated United States export “Harmful” plant
regulations. Within Unique List, the number harmful plants for the country are
listed. United Kingdom (UK).
Table
2. The 38 plant species listed as “Harmful” to European countries. An
additional fact such as a common name, origin, etc. is provided for each of the
species taken from internet searches, do check the facts yourself.
Figure 1. Map of the
number of United States listed regulated “Harmful” plants of export to Europe.
Discussion
PCIT is a good source list
of plants of export concern. Species regulations are not all country specific,
rather there are groups of countries with similar regulations. Countries of the
former Soviet Union had the most species listed. The rest of Europe had only Arceuthobium spp. listed, with a few
exceptions of 1 species difference. These groupings indicate the countries work
together to maintain equal standards for imported plants, plants that can
become a problem across all of them regionally. Politics plays a role in
regulations for international commerce of countries and is apparent in the
finding of two groups: the former Soviet Union and the rest of Europe. Keep in
mind this review analyzes lists on PCIT. Employees that control the information
on PCIT may have few documents of information to update the database. Although
not reviewed here, regulations associated with plants and countries can also be
reviewed on PCIT. This is a government service with good information for those
wishing to understand and learn more about U.S. exports of plant material.
The plant species
listed as harmful are typical of invasive species. Most are weedy and can
spread through an introduced environment, out compete native vegetation, can alter
the current natural flora, and are pervasive to agricultural fields. Not
restricted to land environments, Eichhornia crassipes and Elodea spp. are known
for clogging water ways. Problems go beyond that of growing in unwanted
locations. Arceuthobium spp., Cuscuta spp., and Striga spp. are parasitic pests
to other plants. Some can cause harm to people such as Ambrosia spp. allergies,
rashes of Solanum carolinense (horsenettle), and the toxic Solanum spp., or being
punctured by the spines of Cenchrus pauciflorus, Emex spp., or Sida spinose.
All are similar in that they are difficult to remove and control. Taxonomic
issues are also apparent as with species synonyms, Acroptilon repens with Centaurea
repens and Oenothera laciniata with Raimania laciniata, or the confusion of Aeschynomene
virginica a U.S. federally threatened with extinction plant species (USFWS 2016) with the
weedy Aeschynomene indica.
This review does not
cover all plants and plant trade regulations for European countries. PCIT
covers organisms other than plants as well. PCIT summaries information of commodity
export from the U.S., not from other countries. There are other plants of
concern that can be regulated if they are a known pest. European countries have
lists of other pest species (EPP0 2016). This PCIT review does not attempt and should
not be confused with all regulations of European countries of target export as
they are often numerous and specifically unique to each country, although that
material is listed within PCIT. Any export of plant material to another country
should be thoroughly researched by the exporter. This review provides only a
small portion of trade policy information concerning plants. Other continents
can be examined in a similar manner to understand trade policy and review plant
species of pest concern.
Citation
EPPO (European and Mediterranean Plant
Protection Organization). 2016. EPPO Lists of invasive alien plants. Web
accessed 6/2016 <https://www.eppo.int/INVASIVE_PLANTS/ias_lists.htm>.
ESRI (Environmental Systems Research
Institute). 2015. World Countries. ESRI.com. Web accessed 3/2016, <http://esri.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=ac80670eb213440ea5899bbf92a04998>.
USDA (United States Department of
Agriculture). 2016. Phytosanitary Export Database (PExD). Phytosanitary
Certificate Issuance & Tracking System (PCIT). Web accessed 3/2016, <https://pcit.aphis.usda.gov/pcit/faces/signIn.jsf>.
USFWS (United States Fish & Wildlife
Service). Sensitive joint-vetch (Aeschynomene virginica). 2016. Environmental
Conservation Online System. Web accessed 6/2016, < https://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=Q24J>.
Wikipedia. 2016. List of European
countries by population. Web accessed 3/2016, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population>.
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