Thank you very much.
Good morning. It's a great pleasure for me to appear before this committee. I'm Chris Majka, and I'm here as a researcher, investigating the ecology, biodiversity, and taxonomy of invertebrates, particularly beetles, in Atlantic Canada and Maine.
I'm an ecologist, a research associate at the Nova Scotia Museum, and the administrator of the Thousand Eyes project, a public participation climate change monitoring project. I should emphasize that I'm not officially representing any organization, but I'm speaking based on my research expertise in this area.
To start off, I'll make a quick distinction. Alien species are those that are introduced from elsewhere, in other words, non-native species. Invasive species are those that appear to be dramatically increasing their populations and range. They are beyond normal biological control, frequently at the expense of native species.
It's important to bear in mind that not all alien species are invasive. Indeed, only a very small fraction are. And not all invasive species are alien—for example, the mountain pine beetle and spruce budworm are native invasive species.
The vast majority of introduced species either die out very quickly because conditions for their survival are unsuitable, or they blend into the biological woodwork. For example, in a recent book on introduced beetles in eastern Canada, we identified 510 species. Even employing a broad distinction of invasive, only 5% of these beetles could be considered invasive and only 1% or 2% significant pests.
Here are a couple of quick illustrations of bona fide invasives—I hope the members of the committee have the figures I sent beforehand. The Asian multi-spotted lady beetle was introduced in Louisiana in 1978 for bio-control of aphids. By 1992, it was found in New Brunswick; 1994, in Nova Scotia; and 1998, in Prince Edward Island. Figure 1 in your package illustrates a characteristic feature of invasive species, which is very rapid dispersal throughout a large geographical area. By 2010, it was the most abundant lady beetle in many areas of the Maritimes and was found in virtually every portion of North America, save for Labrador, Saskatchewan, and Wyoming.
Several native lady beetles have experienced significant declines as a result. The parenthesis lady beetle has almost completely disappeared in the maritime provinces and three others. The two-spotted lady beetle, the transverse lady beetle and the nine-spotted lady beetle have become extinct in Maine, and the former two are in serious decline in the Maritimes. They are all important predators of aphids and similar insects. What will the effect of their disappearance be in the many habitats they occupy?
Now, looking at figure 2, the lily leaf beetle was discovered in North America—in Montreal, in 1943. It feeds exclusively on tiger lilies and fritillaria, a related plant. For almost 40 years, the beetle remained confined to the Island of Montreal. Then suddenly it began to rapidly expand its range, appearing in Ottawa, in 1981; Halifax, in 1992; Toronto, in 1993; and Portage la Prairie, in 1999. In the United States, it was first found in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1992, and it has since spread throughout Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and northern Vermont.
Figure 2 illustrates the dispersal of this species in the maritime provinces and adjacent areas of Maine. Again, we see a very rapid dispersal throughout a large geographical area, which is characteristic of invasive species. The lily leaf beetle has had a dramatic impact on the horticultural sector, decimating lilies and leading many gardeners and growers to simply give up growing the plants. Moreover, in New Brunswick, we have now found it on the native Canada lily, a plant already considered rare and endangered in several provinces and states.
In light of these examples, how does climate change factor into the epidemiology of invasive species? The large majority of alien species, both invasive and not, are ecological opportunists, thriving in disturbed habitats. This is in contrast to many native species that are found in indigenous, undisturbed habitats. The effects of climate change are to increasingly disturb ecological equilibria in such a way as to favour ecological opportunists. Contemporary civilization has created large areas of disturbed habitat, such as lawns, agricultural fields, pastures, golf courses, forest plantations, highway rights-of-way, and vacant lots.
This proportion of our landscape has been growing rapidly. For example, in Nova Scotia, after the Second World War, 40% of forested land was considered in old growth. Now it is less than 1%, so there are more and more areas suitable for faunas of disturbed environments. Climate change may further this.
Climatologists predict that the broad pattern of climate change will be to accentuate current patterns. Dry areas will experience more drought, wet areas more precipitation, heat waves will be more severe, cold snaps will be colder, forest fires more frequent, and extreme weather events will occur more often. Such circumstances have a disproportionate impact on native species, adapted, as many of them are, to the present environmental conditions.
Thus, we can expect that there will be more opportunities for invasive species to establish themselves, more habitat for currently established invasive species to exploit, and existing alien species that are not invasive could become so as a result of changing environmental conditions, allowing them to break free of ecological restraints.
So what could the results be? Let's look at one example from research done by my fellow entomologists, Owen Olfert and Ross Weiss, with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon. Figure 3 in your bundle is adapted from their study of three important alien invasive beetles: the cereal leaf beetle, a pest of wheat, oats, and barley; the cabbage seedpod weevil, a pest of plants in the mustard family, including canola, mustard, cabbage, and broccoli; and the bronzed or rape blossom beetle, another serious pest of mustard plants, particularly canola.
Using CLIMEX modelling software, which integrates information on the ecological tolerances of pests, such as their responses to heat, light, moisture, etc., as well as climate data, CLIMEX generates an index that shows how favourable or unfavourable areas of the country could become if there are changes in temperature and moisture, as is expected under climate change.
Figure 3 shows the results of a temperature increase of 3ºC, considered an intermediate value between low and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios for Canada by the end of the century. The results are striking. Climate change would make suitable, favourable, or very favourable a much larger proportion of Canada's land area for all three of these invasive species. It is evident that the economic impact of this would be substantial. And this may already be happening.
I will go back to the lily leaf beetle for a second. Although we don't know for certain why this species remained confined to Montreal for almost 40 years, this pattern of sudden release from ecological constraints and rapid dispersal and colonization is consistent with the effects of climate change on populations.
So what needs to be done? There are several priority areas.
One, we need to devote significantly greater resources to conducting biodiversity research. We need to determine which species are present, which are not, and which could be threatened by invasives. Lacking a good bio-inventory, we're groping in the dark. Even if we detect alien species, we can't determine if they are new or if they have been present, undetected for decades or centuries.
Two, to conduct bio-inventory work we need significantly greater funding for developing and maintaining taxonomic resources: museums, reference collections, taxonomic experts, and publications. Financial resources for all of these have been in steep decline. The National Research Council of Canada's monograph publishing program was phased out in 2010 for lack of funding.
Three, we need to monitor for new alien species and for changes in the distribution of established alien species that might be influenced by climate change. And this can't be confined to already identified invasives. We have to look widely, since, to quote the former American Secretary of Defense, there are “unknown unknowns” out there.
Four, in order to employ sophisticated modelling programs such as CLIMEX, we need to have detailed eco-physiological information about potential invasives. Otherwise, accurate data to plug into the models is lacking. We should devote more, not fewer, resources to Environment Canada to conduct such research.
And five, as far as I'm aware, climate change has not been formally integrated into federal risk assessment and management processes. A one-day topic on this subject was organized by the Policy Research Initiative in November 2008. Participants identified a number of challenges that needed to be addressed in order to integrate climate change into risk assessment and management. These include developing accurate models of climate change, developing an institutional awareness of climate change, developing expertise--biological, climatic, and technical--targeting funds for undertaking these processes, integrating climate change awareness into policy development in other social and economic sectors, and fostering long-term decision-making. These are all important governmental and institutional objectives, and most remain addressed.
Finally, as I hope these few examples illustrate, climate change represents a ticking time bomb in relation to invasive species--and much else. The Canada we live in has taken 20,000 years, since the end of the last glaciation, to reach an ecological equilibrium. We’ve already significantly disturbed that equilibrium. Once climate, the bedrock of the ecological world, begins to change, all bets are off as to where this may lead. It's important to develop measures such as those I have outlined to backstop that risk, but it's even more critical that we take all possible measures to minimize climate change at all. The costs of not taking action will certainly greatly exceed those of doing so.
Thanks very much.