In view of the massive change in the area of distribution of many world
biota across classical biogeographical realms, and of the drastic
restructuring of the biotic components of numerous ecosystems, the
Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) decided at
its general Assembly in Ottawa, Canada, in 1982 to launch a project on
the 'Ecology of Biological Invasions'. Several regional meetings were
subsequently organized within the framework of SCOPE, in order to single
out the peculiarities of the invasions that took place in each region,
the behaviour of their invasive species and the invasibility of their
ecosystems. Most noteworthy among such workshops were one in Australia
in August 1984, one concerning North America and Hawaii in October 1984,
and one dealing with southern Africa in November 1985. A leitmotiv of
these workshops was that most of the invasive species to those regions
were emanating from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, inadvertently or
intentionally introduced by man. It was therefore considered as a timely
endeavour to organize the next regional meeting in relation to this
region. The workshop on 'Biological Invasions in Europe and the
Mediterranean Basin' was held in Montpellier, France, 21 to 23 May 1986,
thanks to the financial support of SCOPE and of the A.W. Mellon
Foundation, and the logistic facilities of the Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique (C.N .R.S.).