This process identifies gaps in knowledge and thus may expand basic research that would be useful to the whole field. The storage effect hypothesis suggested that strong recruitment under favorable periods is stored in the adult population or the soil seed bank and is capable of contributing to reproduction when favorable conditions return. Many introductions were made under a relaxed protocol. We can't recall them but we can learn from them. Therefore, we need systematic analyses and detailed studies of these past releases.
Discussion Preventing harmful introductions is the highest priority.
We need as good a protocol to protect against exotic invasions as we have to protect against mistakes in biocontrol releases . Nearly 1,000 biocontrol agents per year are released. To cite another area of ignorance, the environmental impacts of agents like microbial pesticides are very poorly known. It is a broad-spectrum larvacide that killed native lepidoptera. This could have been more harmful environmentally than chemical pesticides.