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The Conversation
The Conversation
Environment
Amy Hinsley, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford

The global plant trade is spreading invasive species to Europe

Europe England Sheffield United Kingdom
The Italian wall lizard likes to stowaway on olive trees. Qvist2000 / shutterstock

Back in 2016, one of us (Silviu Petrovan) was asked to identify a live frog found in a shipment of roses in Sheffield, England. It certainly wasn’t any species found in Europe: Silviu thought he had been pranked.

But with help from Ecuadorian and Colombian scientists, he was soon able to identify it as a North Andean tree frog. This species is found only in a few areas in the highlands of Colombia including, crucially, a region known for its flower-growing.

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