Invasive species, ecosystem services and human well-being

Pejchar, Liba; Mooney, Harold A.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.03.016

Cited by 1,134 publications

(765 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…2001). Consequently, the growing rate of globalization has increased the risk of non‐native species being introduced to new regions (Pejchar and Mooney 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population genetic structure of the predatory, social wasp Vespula pensylvanica in its native and invasive range

Chau

Hanna

Jenkins

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

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Invasive species cause extensive damage to their introduced ranges. Ocean archipelagos are particularly vulnerable to invasive taxa. In this study, we used polymorphic microsatellite markers to investigate the genetic structure of the social wasp Vespula pensylvanica in its native range of North America and its introduced range in the archipelago of Hawaii. Our goal was to gain a better understanding of the invasion dynamics of social species and the processes affecting biological invasions. We found that V. pensylvanica showed no significant genetic isolation by distance and little genetic structure over a span of 2000 km in its native range. This result suggests that V. pensylvanica can successfully disperse across large distances either through natural‐ or human‐mediated mechanisms. In contrast to the genetic patterns observed in the native range, we found substantial genetic structure in the invasive V. pensylvanica range in Hawaii. The strong patterns of genetic differentiation within and between the Hawaiian Islands may reflect the effects of geographic barriers and invasion history on gene flow. We also found some evidence for gene flow between the different islands of Hawaii which was likely mediated through human activity. Overall, this study provides insight on how geographic barriers, invasion history, and human activity can shape population genetic structure of invasive species.

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“…2001). Consequently, the growing rate of globalization has increased the risk of non‐native species being introduced to new regions (Pejchar and Mooney 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population genetic structure of the predatory, social wasp Vespula pensylvanica in its native and invasive range

Chau

Hanna

Jenkins

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Invasive species therefore cause significant environmental damage and economic losses. (Hobbs and Mooney 1998;Kark and Antonio 2002;Pimentel et al 2005;Pejchar and Mooney 2009;Pyšek and Richardson 2010). Only 2 % of introduced plant species eventually become invasive weeds although they are not necessarily pest species in their native areas (Williamson and Fitter 1996;Williamson 1996;Reichard and White 2001;Bell et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enemies lost: parallel evolution in structural defense and tolerance to herbivory of invasive Jacobaea vulgaris

et al. 2015

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According to the Shifting Defense Hypothesis, invasive plants should trade-off their costly quantitative defense to cheaper qualitative defense and growth due to the lack of natural specialist enemies and the presence of generalist enemies in the introduced areas. Several studies showed that plant genotypes from the invasive areas had a better qualitative defense than genotypes from the native area but only a few studies have focused on the quantitative defenses and tolerance ability. We compared structural defenses, tolerance and growth between invasive and native plant populations from different continents using the model plant Jacobaea vulgaris. We examined several microscopical structure traits, toughness, amount of cell wall proteins, growth and root-shoot ratio, which is a proxy for tolerance. The results show that invasive Jacobaea vulgaris have thinner leaves, lower leaf mass area, lower leaf cell wall protein contents and a lower root-shoot ratio than native genotypes. It indicates that invasive genotypes have poorer structural defense and tolerance to herbivory but potentially higher growth compared to native genotypes. These findings are in line with the Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability hypothesis and Shifting Defense Hypothesis. We also show that the invasiveness of this species in three geographically separated regions is consistently associated with the loss of parts of its quantitative defense and tolerance ability. The simultaneous change in quantitative defense and tolerance of the same magnitude and direction in the three invasive regions can be explained by parallel evolution. We argue that such parallel evolution might be attributed to the absence of natural enemies rather than adaptation to local abiotic factors, since climate conditions among these three regions were different. Understanding such evolutionary changes helps to understand why plant species become invasive and might be important for biological control.

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“…Alien plants may change nutrient cycles, affect interactions between native species and are often superior competitors for limited resources in comparison with their native counterparts (Traveset and Richardson 2006;Funk and Vitousek 2007). Invasive alien species are so troublesome that their colonization and population growth often give rise to substantial economic loss in agriculture, aquaculture or nature conservation (Clout and Williams 2009;Pejchar and Mooney 2009;Lenda et al 2010). It has also been documented that certain invasive alien species may add to species extinction (Clavero and García-Berthou 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invasive alien plants affect grassland ant communities, colony size and foraging behaviour

et al. 2013

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Ants are dominant members of many terrestrial ecosystems and are regarded as indicators of environmental changes. However, little is known about the effects of invasive alien plants on ant populations, particularly as regards the density, spatial distribution and size of ant colonies, as well as their foraging behaviour. We addressed these questions in a study of grassland ant communities on five grasslands invaded by alien goldenrods (Solidago sp.) and on five non-invaded grasslands without this plant. In each grassland, seven 100 m 2 plots were selected and the ant colonies counted. Ant species richness and colony density was lower in the plots on the invaded grasslands. Moreover, both of these traits were higher in the plots near the grassland edge and with a higher number of plant species in the grasslands invaded by goldenrods but not in the non-invaded ones. On average, ant colony size was lower on the invaded grasslands than the non-invaded ones. Also, ant workers travelled for longer distances to collect food items in the invaded areas than they did in the non-invaded ones, even after the experimental removal of some ant colonies in order to exclude the effect of higher colony density in the latter. Our results indicate that invasive alien goldenrods have a profound negative effect on grassland ant communities which may lead to a cascade effect on the whole grassland ecosystem through modification of the interactions among species. The invasion diminishes a major index of the fitness of ants, which is a colony's size, and probably leads to increased foraging effort of workers. This, in turn, may have important consequences for the division of labour and reproductive strategies within ant colonies.

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Invasive species, ecosystem services and human well-being

Cited by 1,134 publications

References 57 publications

Population genetic structure of the predatory, social wasp Vespula pensylvanica in its native and invasive range

Population genetic structure of the predatory, social wasp Vespula pensylvanica in its native and invasive range

Enemies lost: parallel evolution in structural defense and tolerance to herbivory of invasive Jacobaea vulgaris

Invasive alien plants affect grassland ant communities, colony size and foraging behaviour

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