Invasive species, globalization, and climate change: Challenges and solutions?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Roderick
Author(s):  
Karen J. Esler ◽  
Anna L. Jacobsen ◽  
R. Brandon Pratt

The world’s mediterranean-type climate regions (including areas within the Mediterranean, South Africa, Australia, California, and Chile) have long been of interest to biologists by virtue of their extraordinary biodiversity and the appearance of evolutionary convergence between these disparate regions. Comparisons between mediterranean-type climate regions have provided important insights into questions at the cutting edge of ecological, ecophysiological and evolutionary research. These regions, dominated by evergreen shrubland communities, contain many rare and endemic species. Their mild climate makes them appealing places to live and visit and this has resulted in numerous threats to the species and communities that occupy them. Threats include a wide range of factors such as habitat loss due to development and agriculture, disturbance, invasive species, and climate change. As a result, they continue to attract far more attention than their limited geographic area might suggest. This book provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to mediterranean-type ecosystems. As with other books in the Biology of Habitats Series, the emphasis in this book is on the organisms that dominate these regions although their management, conservation, and restoration are also considered.


Author(s):  
George P Malanson ◽  
Michelle L Talal ◽  
Elizabeth R Pansing ◽  
Scott B Franklin

Current research on vegetation makes a difference in people’s lives. Plant community classification is a backbone of land management, plant communities are changing in response to anthropogenic drivers, and the processes of change have impacts on ecosystem services. In the following progress report, we summarize the status of classification and recent research on vegetation responses to pollution, especially nitrogen deposition, invasive species, climate change, and land use and direct exploitation. Two areas with human feedbacks are underscored: fire ecology and urban ecology. Prominent questions at the current research frontier are highlighted with attention to new perspectives.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Cooling ◽  
Stephen Hartley ◽  
Dalice A. Sim ◽  
Philip J. Lester

Synergies between invasive species and climate change are widely considered to be a major biodiversity threat. However, invasive species are also hypothesized to be susceptible to population collapse, as we demonstrate for a globally important invasive species in New Zealand. We observed Argentine ant populations to have collapsed in 40 per cent of surveyed sites. Populations had a mean survival time of 14.1 years (95% CI = 12.9–15.3 years). Resident ant communities had recovered or partly recovered after their collapse. Our models suggest that climate change will delay colony collapse, as increasing temperature and decreasing rainfall significantly increased their longevity, but only by a few years. Economic and environmental costs of invasive species may be small if populations collapse on their own accord.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. e29657 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Canning-Clode ◽  
Amy E. Fowler ◽  
James E. Byers ◽  
James T. Carlton ◽  
Gregory M. Ruiz

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 612-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Otieno ◽  
Hans Spada ◽  
Katharina Liebler ◽  
Thomas Ludemann ◽  
Ulrich Deil ◽  
...  

2007 ◽  
Vol 274 (1625) ◽  
pp. 2531-2537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L Chown ◽  
Sarette Slabber ◽  
Melodie A McGeoch ◽  
Charlene Janion ◽  
Hans Petter Leinaas

Synergies between global change and biological invasion have been identified as a major potential threat to global biodiversity and human welfare. The global change-type drought characteristic of many temperate terrestrial ecosystems is especially significant because it will apparently favour invasive over indigenous species, adding to the burden of conservation and compromising ecosystem service delivery. However, the nature of and mechanisms underlying this synergy remain poorly explored. Here we show that in a temperate terrestrial ecosystem, invasive and indigenous springtail species differ in the form of their phenotypic plasticity such that warmer conditions promote survival of desiccation in the invasive species and reduce it in the indigenous ones. These differences are consistent with significant declines in the densities of indigenous species and little change in those of invasive species in a manipulative field experiment that mimicked climate change trends. We suggest that it is not so much the extent of phenotypic plasticity that distinguishes climate change responses among these invasive and indigenous species, as the form that this plasticity takes. Nonetheless, this differential physiological response provides support for the idea that in temperate terrestrial systems experiencing global change-type drought, invasive species may well be at an advantage relative to their indigenous counterparts.


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