Remoteness promotes biological invasions on islands worldwide

One of the best-known general patterns in island biogeography is the species–isolation relationship (SIR), a decrease in the number of native species with increasing island isolation that is linked to lower rates of natural dispersal and colonization on remote oceanic islands. However, during recent...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 115; no. 37; pp. 9270 - 9275
Main Authors Moser, Dietmar, Lenzner, Bernd, Weigelt, Patrick, Dawson, Wayne, Kreft, Holger, Pergl, Jan, Pyšek, Petr, van Kleunen, Mark, Winter, Marten, Capinha, César, Cassey, Phillip, Dullinger, Stefan, Economo, Evan P., García-Díaz, Pablo, Guénard, Benoit, Hofhansl, Florian, Mang, Thomas, Seebens, Hanno, Essl, Franz
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 11.09.2018
Subjects
Anthropogenic factors
Biodiversity
Biogeography
Biological Sciences
Biota
Birds
Colonies & territories
Colonization
Dispersal
Indigenous plants
Indigenous species
Introduced Species
Invasive species
Island biogeography
Islands
Models, Biological
Oceanic islands
Reptiles
Tropical Climate
naturalization
island biogeography
isolation
island invasibility
alien species
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Summary:One of the best-known general patterns in island biogeography is the species–isolation relationship (SIR), a decrease in the number of native species with increasing island isolation that is linked to lower rates of natural dispersal and colonization on remote oceanic islands. However, during recent centuries, the anthropogenic introduction of alien species has increasingly gained importance and altered the composition and richness of island species pools. We analyzed a large dataset for alien and native plants, ants, reptiles, mammals, and birds on 257 (sub) tropical islands, and showed that, except for birds, the number of naturalized alien species increases with isolation for all taxa, a pattern that is opposite to the negative SIR of native species. We argue that the reversal of the SIR for alien species is driven by an increase in island invasibility due to reduced diversity and increased ecological naiveté of native biota on the more remote islands.
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Edited by Daniel S. Simberloff, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, and approved August 2, 2018 (received for review March 9, 2018)
Author contributions: D.M. and B.L. designed research; D.M. and B.L. performed research; P.W., W.D., H.K., J.P., P.P., M.v.K., M.W., C.C., P.C., S.D., E.P.E., P.G.-D., B.G., H.S., and F.E. contributed data for the different taxonomic groups; D.M., B.L., F.H., and T.M. analyzed data; and D.M., B.L., P.W., W.D., H.K., J.P., P.P., M.v.K., M.W., C.C., P.C., S.D., E.P.E., P.G.-D., B.G., F.H., T.M., H.S., and F.E. wrote the paper.
1D.M. and B.L. contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1804179115