Species invasions exceed extinctions on islands worldwide: a comparative study of plants and birds

The American Naturalist
Dov F SaxJames H Brown

Abstract

Species richness is decreasing at a global scale. At subglobal scales, that is, within any defined area less extensive than the globe, species richness will increase when the number of nonnative species becoming naturalized is greater than the number of native species becoming extinct. Determining whether this has occurred is usually difficult because detailed records of species extinctions and naturalizations are rare; these records often exist, however, for oceanic islands. Here we show that species richness on oceanic islands has remained relatively unchanged for land birds, with the number of naturalizations being roughly equal to the number of extinctions, and has increased dramatically for vascular plants, with the number of naturalizations greatly exceeding the number of extinctions. In fact, for plants, the net number of species on islands has approximately doubled. We show further that these patterns are robust to differences in the history of human occupation of these islands and to the possibility of undocumented species extinctions. These results suggest that species richness may be increasing at subglobal scales for many groups and that future research should address what consequences this may have on ecological pr...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 29, 2005·Journal of Chemical Ecology·Jacob N BarneyLeslie A Weston
Jun 19, 2013·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Dov F SaxJesse Bellemare
Aug 13, 2008·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Dov F Sax, Steven D Gaines
Dec 17, 2009·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Marten WinterIngolf Kühn
Dec 8, 2010·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Daniel L Rabosky, Richard E Glor
Jan 9, 2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Benjamin Gilbert, Jonathan M Levine
Oct 23, 2012·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Martin A SchlaepferJulian D Olden
Jun 16, 2007·Science·Jeremy T KerrDavid J Currie
Mar 16, 2007·PloS One·Jarrett E ByrnesJohn J Stachowicz
Apr 28, 2012·PloS One·Larisa R G DeSantisMatthew C Velasco
Jan 28, 2014·PloS One·Ana B BugnotEzequiel M Marzinelli
Sep 11, 2009·Ecology·D W KellyD M Tompkins
May 26, 2012·Ecology·Daniel SimberloffWindy Bunn
Dec 14, 2004·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Brad W Taylor, Rebecca E Irwin
Jul 21, 2004·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Tinsley H Davis
Jul 10, 2004·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·David Tilman
Jun 7, 2011·Oecologia·James C RussellMatthieu Le Corre
Sep 17, 2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Robert J WhittakerKostas A Triantis
Aug 11, 2011·The American Naturalist·David Tilman
Apr 24, 2015·The American Naturalist·Daniel L Rabosky, Allen H Hurlbert
Apr 24, 2015·The American Naturalist·Luke J Harmon, Susan Harrison
May 5, 2007·The American Naturalist·Kristina J Anderson
May 2, 2006·The American Naturalist·Marc William Cadotte
Oct 29, 2003·The American Naturalist·Julian D Olden, N LeRoy Poff
Oct 2, 2007·The American Naturalist·Robert E Ricklefs
Apr 2, 2015·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Chris D Thomas, G Palmer
Dec 25, 2015·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Jacob B SocolarDavid P Edwards
Jul 7, 2009·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Dov F SaxAndrew R Thompson
Oct 1, 2008·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Brent C Emerson, Rosemary G Gillespie
May 29, 2009·Ecology Letters·Jeannine Cavender-BaresSteven W Kembel
Nov 23, 2006·Ecology Letters·Hong Qian, Robert E Ricklefs
Apr 28, 2006·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Pierre-François DuyckSerge Quilici

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