There are many species, including wasps, flies, fungi, and other organisms, that are parasites/parasitoids of invasive species. Through human means or by hitching a ride on their hosts, these organisms have ended up in regions they didn’t originally live in. Unlike their hosts, these organisms sometimes have little to no impact on the ecosystem itself and only really have a negative impact on their invasive host itself.
My question is, should these parasites be listed as introduced/invasive? Sometimes biocontrol efforts can go badly, such as the case of the cane toad, or other times a lot of time and research has gone in place to make sure a biocontrol organism only affects its intended target. Is there any convention on this for inat on how to mark these species?
If they were originally introduced, mark them as such. iNat has no designation for invasive. But they are definitely wild. I have done this for a few introduced parasitoids.
I’d say just leave something about it in the notes. The only people who care about its introduced biocontrol status will be the same ones who bother reading that info.
The line between “unintentionally introduced but minimally impactful” and “invasive" is variable. To some, if it even takes up space or resources that could/would be used by native species, it is negatively impacting the ecosystem and therefore invasive, which is a completely valid view.
All that can be done is just saying things like “blah blah, introduced as biocontrol” or “non-native”, because those points can’t be argued, unlike invasive status.