A large-scale study on 34 Mediterranean marinas (Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus) revealed that Mediterranean marinas indeed act as major hubs for the transfer of marine alien species, indicating that recreational boats act as effective vectors of spread. Numerous new alien species records at the basin, subregional, country and locality level are also reported.

EASIN webpage devoted to Citizen Science initiatives on alien and invasive alien species in Europe has been updated and organized to provide information at European and Country level.

A special issue of "Journal of Aquatic Invasions" includes studies presented at three international meetings devoted to invasive species in inland water ecosystems held in 2016 in Europe and North America

Citizen Science allows collaboration between scientists and the public to co-generate greater knowledge and understanding of nature and environment: marine Citizen Science is rapidly gaining interest and there are many smartphone applications available

Biological invasions can cause high costs to the environment and socio-economy. However, the impacts caused by alien species vary between species and contexts and there is substantial debate on their severity and scale.

Waarneming, a citizen science site for natural observations and biodiversity monitoring in the Netherlands, reported the first observation of Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, in the Netherlands.

Information on freshwater alien molluscs in Europe has been revised and updated in the EASIN Catalogue (version 6.1), including first year and country of introduction in Europe, native range, synonyms, common names, pathways, and new entries.

The new online application allows to run the latest version of the risk assessment method for ballast water introductions in the Baltic and the larger North-East Atlantic area.

The GloFouling Partnerships project – a collaboration between the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – will address the transfer of alien aquatic species through biofouling.

JRC has released the source code of the Smartphone application “Invasive Alien Species Europe” (allowing reporting of invasive species of Union concern under EU Regulation 1143/2014), under the General Public License GNU GPLv3.

EASIN is glad to announce that two more organizations have joined its network of data partners, and have agreed to share scientific information and spatial data on alien species with the scientific community, managers, and general public via EASIN platform.

Citizen scientists play an important role in providing biodiversity data. It is therefore crucial to understand the concerns and motivations of voluntary recorders to ensure their continued enthusiasm and involvement.

Data on invasive alien species must be up-to-date, reliable and accurate, standardized and openly accessible to serve the need of tackling biological invasions. Biodiversity data are often scattered in many disconnected databases lacking interoperability.

By means of the Commission Implementing Regulation 1263/2017, 12 further invasive alien species (IAS) have been added to the list of IAS of Union concern, approved by EU Commission Implementing Regulation 1141/2016. The total number of regulated species on the list is now 49.

EASIN is establishing collaborations with scientific organizations working on biodiversity and alien species, aiming at enriching the quality of scientific information and spatial data retrievable via its information system.