- alien species
means any live specimen of a species, subspecies or lower taxon of animals, plants, fungi or micro-organisms introduced outside its natural range;
- biodiversity
means the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part;
- contained holding
means keeping an organism in closed facilities from which escape or spread is not possible;
- containment
means any action aimed at creating barriers which minimises the risk of a population of an invasive alien species dispersing and spreading beyond the invaded area;
- early detection
means the confirmation of the presence of a specimen or specimens of an invasive alien species in the environment before it has become widely spread;
- ecosystem services
means the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing;
- eradication
means the complete and permanent removal of a population of invasive alien species by lethal or non-lethal means;
- ex-situ conservation
means the conservation of components of biological diversity outside their natural habitat;
- introduction
means the movement, as a consequence of human intervention, of a species outside its natural range;
- invasive alien species
means an alien species whose introduction or spread has been found to threaten or adversely impact upon biodiversity and related ecosystem services;
- invasive alien species of Member State concern
means an invasive alien species other than an invasive alien species of Union concern, for which a Member State considers on the basis of scientific evidence that the adverse impact of its release and spread, even where not fully ascertained, is of significance for its territory, or part of it, and requires action at the level of that Member State;
- invasive alien species of Union concern
means an invasive alien species whose adverse impact has been deemed such as to require concerted action at Union level pursuant to Article 4(3);
- management
means any lethal or non-lethal action aimed at the eradication, population control or containment of a population of an invasive alien species, while also minimising the impact on non-targeted species and their habitats.
- pathways
means the routes and mechanisms of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species;
- population control
means any lethal or non-lethal action applied to a population of invasive alien species, while also minimising the impact on non-targeted species and their habitats, with the aim of keeping the number of individuals as low as possible, so that, while not being able to eradicate the species, its invasive capacity and adverse impact on biodiversity, the related ecosystem services, on human health or the economy, are minimised;
- research
means descriptive or experimental work, undertaken under regulated conditions to obtain new scientific findings or to develop new products, including the initial phases of identification, characterisation and isolation of genetic features, other than those features which make a species invasive, of invasive alien species only insofar as essential to enable the breeding of those features into non-invasive species;
- widely spread
means an invasive alien species whose population has gone beyond the naturalisation stage, in which a population is self-sustaining, and has spread to colonise a large part of the potential range where it can survive and reproduce;