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

Seebens, Hanno; Blackburn, Tim M.; Dyer, Ellie E.; Genovesi, Piero; Hulme, Philip E.; Jeschke, Jonathan M.; Pagad, Shyama; Pyšek, Petr; van Kleunen, Mark; Winter, Marten; Ansong, Michael; Arianoutsou, Margarita; Bacher, Sven; Blasius, Bernd; Brockerhoff, Eckehard G.; Brundu, Giuseppe; Capinha, César; Causton, Charlotte E.; Celesti-Grapow, Laura; Dawson, Wayne; Dullinger, Stefan; Economo, Evan P.; Fuentes, Nicol; Guénard, Benoit; Jäger, Heinke; Kartesz, John; Kenis, Marc; Kühn, Ingolf; Lenzner, Bernd; Liebhold, Andrew M.; Mosena, Alexander; Moser, Dietmar; Nentwig, Wolfgang; Nishino, Misako; Pearman, David; Pergl, Jan; Rabitsch, Wolfgang; Rojas-Sandoval, Julissa; Roques, Alain; Rorke, Stephanie; Rossinelli, Silvia; Roy, Helen E.; Scalera, Riccardo; Schindler, Stefan; Štajerová, Kateřina; Tokarska-Guzik, Barbara; Walker, Kevin; Ward, Darren F.; Yamanaka, Takehiko; Essl, Franz

doi:10.1073/pnas.1719429115

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

Seebens, Hanno; Blackburn, Tim M.; Dyer, Ellie E.; Genovesi, Piero; Hulme, Philip E.; Jeschke, Jonathan M.; Pagad, Shyama; Pyšek, Petr; van Kleunen, Mark; Winter, Marten; Ansong, Michael; Arianoutsou, Margarita; Bacher, Sven; Blasius, Bernd; Brockerhoff, Eckehard G.; Brundu, Giuseppe; Capinha, César; Causton, Charlotte E.; Celesti-Grapow, Laura; Dawson, Wayne; Dullinger, Stefan; Economo, Evan P.; Fuentes, Nicol; Guénard, Benoit; Jäger, Heinke; Kartesz, John; Kenis, Marc; Kühn, Ingolf; Lenzner, Bernd; Liebhold, Andrew M.; Mosena, Alexander; Moser, Dietmar; Nentwig, Wolfgang; Nishino, Misako; Pearman, David; Pergl, Jan; Rabitsch, Wolfgang; Rojas-Sandoval, Julissa; Roques, Alain; Rorke, Stephanie; Rossinelli, Silvia; Roy, Helen E.; Scalera, Riccardo; Schindler, Stefan; Štajerová, Kateřina; Tokarska-Guzik, Barbara; Walker, Kevin; Ward, Darren F.; Yamanaka, Takehiko; Essl, Franz

Authors

Hanno Seebens

Tim M. Blackburn

Ellie E. Dyer

Piero Genovesi

Philip E. Hulme

Jonathan M. Jeschke

Shyama Pagad

Petr Pyšek

Mark van Kleunen

Marten Winter

Michael Ansong

Margarita Arianoutsou

Sven Bacher

Bernd Blasius

Eckehard G. Brockerhoff

Giuseppe Brundu

César Capinha

Charlotte E. Causton

Laura Celesti-Grapow

Dr Wayne Dawson wayne.dawson@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Stefan Dullinger

Evan P. Economo

Nicol Fuentes

Benoit Guénard

Heinke Jäger

John Kartesz

Marc Kenis

Ingolf Kühn

Bernd Lenzner

Andrew M. Liebhold

Alexander Mosena

Dietmar Moser

Wolfgang Nentwig

Misako Nishino

David Pearman

Jan Pergl

Wolfgang Rabitsch

Julissa Rojas-Sandoval

Alain Roques

Stephanie Rorke

Silvia Rossinelli

Helen E. Roy

Riccardo Scalera

Stefan Schindler

Kateřina Štajerová

Barbara Tokarska-Guzik

Kevin Walker

Darren F. Ward

Takehiko Yamanaka

Franz Essl

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. Even after many centuries of invasions the rate of emergence of new alien species is still high: One-quarter of first records during 2000–2005 were of species that had not been previously recorded anywhere as alien, though with large variation across taxa. Model results show that the high proportion of emerging alien species cannot be solely explained by increases in well-known drivers such as the amount of imported commodities from historically important source regions. Instead, these dynamics reflect the incorporation of new regions into the pool of potential alien species, likely as a consequence of expanding trade networks and environmental change. This process compensates for the depletion of the historically important source species pool through successive invasions. We estimate that 1–16% of all species on Earth, depending on the taxonomic group, qualify as potential alien species. These results suggest that there remains a high proportion of emerging alien species we have yet to encounter, with future impacts that are difficult to predict.

Citation

Seebens, H., Blackburn, T. M., Dyer, E. E., Genovesi, P., Hulme, P. E., Jeschke, J. M., …Essl, F. (2018). Global rise in emerging alien species results from increased accessibility of new source pools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(10), E2264-E2273. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719429115

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 3, 2018
Online Publication Date	Feb 5, 2018
Publication Date	Feb 5, 2018
Deposit Date	Feb 13, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Jun 18, 2019
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Print ISSN	0027-8424
Electronic ISSN	1091-6490
Publisher	National Academy of Sciences
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	115
Issue	10
Pages	E2264-E2273
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719429115