No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide

Hanno Seebens (1, 2, 3) , Tim M. Blackburn (4, 5, 6, 7, 8) , Ellie E. Dyer (4, 5) , Piero Genovesi (9, 10) , Philip E. Hulme (11) , Jonathan M. Jeschke (12, 13, 14) , Shyama Pagad (15, 16) , Petr Pysek (17, 18) , Marten Winter (19) , Margarita Arianoutsou (20) , Sven Bacher (21) , Bernd Blasius (3) , Giuseppe Brundu (22) , Cesar Capinha (23, 24) , Laura Celesti-Grapow (25) , Wayne Dawson (26, 27) , Stefan Dullinger (2) , Nicol Fuentes (28) , Heinke Jaeger (29) , John Kartesz (30) , Marc Kenis (31) , Holger Kreft (32) , Ingolf Kuehn (19, 33, 34) , Bernd Lenzner (2) , Andrew Liebhold (35) , Alexander Mosena (36) , Dietmar Moser (2) , Misako Nishino (30) , David Pearman (37) , Jan Pergl (17) , Wolfgang Rabitsch (38) , Julissa Rojas-Sandoval (39) , Alain Roques (40) , Stephanie Rorke (41) , Silvia Rossinelli (21) , Helen E. Roy , Riccardo Scalera (10) , Stefan Schindler (2) , Katerina Stajerova (17, 18) , Barbara Tokarska-Guzik (42) , Mark van Kleunen (26) , Kevin Walker (37) , Patrick Weigelt (32) , Takehiko Yamanaka (43, 44) , Franz Essl (2)

1 SBiK-F - Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre
2 Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research
3 ICBM - Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment
4 Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment
5 Institute of Zoology
6 Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology
7 Distinguished Scientist Fellowship Program
8 School of Biological Sciences [Adelaïde]
9 ISPRA - National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research
10 Species Survival Commission - IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) - Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG)
11 Bio-Protection Research Centre
12 IGB - Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei
13 Institute of Biology at the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy
14 BBIB - Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research
15 University of Auckland [Auckland]
16 Species Survival Commission - IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) - Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG)
17 Department of Invasion Ecology, Institute of Botany
18 Faculty of Science, Department of Ecology
19 German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
20 Faculty of Biology, Department of Ecology and Systematics, School of Sciences
21 Department of Biology
22 Department of Agriculture
23 Universidade do Porto = University of Porto
24 Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig
25 Department of Environmental Biology
26 Department of Ecology [Warsaw]
27 Department of Biosciences
28 Departamento de Botanica, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanograficas
29 Charles Darwin Foundation
30 BONAP - Biota of North America Program
31 CABI - Centre for Agricultural and Biosciences International
32 Department of Biodiversity, Macroecology and Biogeography
33 Department of Community Ecology
34 Department of Geobotany and Botanical Garden
35 Northern Research Station
36 Center for Interamerican Studies (CIAS), Department of Experimental and Systems Ecology
37 BSBI - Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland
38 Department of Biodiversity and Nature Conservation
39 Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution
40 URZF - Unité de recherche Zoologie Forestière
41 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
42 Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Department of Botany and Nature Protection
43 NARO - National Agriculture and Food Research Organization
44 NIAES - National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences

Although research on human-mediated exchanges of species has substantially intensified during the last centuries, we know surprisingly little about temporal dynamics of alien species accumulations across regions and taxa. Using a novel database of 45,813 first records of 16,926 established alien species, we show that the annual rate of first records worldwide has increased during the last 200 years, with 37% of all first records reported most recently (1970-2014). Inter-continental and inter-taxonomic variation can be largely attributed to the diaspora of European settlers in the nineteenth century and to the acceleration in trade in the twentieth century. For all taxonomic groups, the increase in numbers of alien species does not show any sign of saturation and most taxa even show increases in the rate of first records over time. This highlights that past efforts to mitigate invasions have not been effective enough to keep up with increasing globalization.

Mots clés: taxa; buildup; population distribution

Mots clés: espèce exotique; espèce exotique invasive; dynamique de la colonisation; distribution des populations; invasion biologique; accumulation; dynamique temporelle; donnée taxonomique; taxon; dynamique de colonisation; biogeographie

Domaines: Milieux et Changements globaux

Hanno Seebens, Tim M. Blackburn, Ellie E. Dyer, Piero Genovesi, Philip E. Hulme, et al.. No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide. Nature Communications, 2017, 8, ⟨10.1038/ncomms14435⟩. ⟨hal-01607783⟩