PAPER: Global rise in emerging alien species

Global rise in emerging alien species results from increased accessibility of new source pools

February 2018

Seebens H, Blackburn TM, Dyer EE, Genovesi P, Hulme PE, Jeschke JM, Pagad S, Pysek P, van Kleunen M, Winter M and others 2018. Global rise in emerging alien species results from increased accessibility of new source pools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 115(10): E2264-E2273.

ABSTRACT

Our ability to predict the identity of future invasive alien species is largely based upon knowledge of prior invasion history. Emerging alien species - those never encountered as aliens before - therefore pose a significant challenge to biosecurity interventions worldwide. Understanding their temporal trends, origins, and the drivers of their spread is pivotal to improving prevention and risk assessment tools. Here, we use a database of 45,984 first records of 16,019 established alien species to investigate the temporal dynamics of occurrences of emerging alien species worldwide.

KEYWORDS

source species pools; invasive species; drivers; time series; globalisation