"Trade has been shown repeatedly to be correlated to the number of invasive species a country has," Paini said. The research finds that sub-Saharan Africa is the global region with the potential to be hit hardest, agriculturally speaking, by invasive species. By Chelsea HarveySwimming through the seas, taking over forests, creeping into your garden - invasive species are everywhere, and they're becoming one of the world's major environmental concerns. They decided to use global trade connections, and the value of a country's annual importation, as a proxy for the likelihood that pest species might be carried across borders. Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, for instance, are a prime example of how an invasive species can take over an entire ecosystem in just a short amount of time.

Source: New Zealand Herald June 22, 2016 00:20 UTC