Support for major hypotheses in invasion biology is uneven and declining

By Jonathan M. Jeschke, Lorena Gómez Aparicio, S. Haider, Tina Heger, Christopher J. Lortie, Petr Pyšek, David L. Strayer. 2012

361 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Several major hypotheses have been proposed to explain and predict biological invasions, but the general applicability of these hypotheses is largely unknown, as most of them have not been evaluated using a standard approach across taxonomic groups and habitats. We offer such an evaluation for six selected leading hypotheses. Our global literature review reveals that those hypotheses that consider interactions of exotic invaders with their new environment (invasional meltdown, novel weapons, enemy release) are better supported by empirical evidence than other hypotheses (biotic resistance, island susceptibility, tens rule). We also show that empirical support for the six hypotheses has declined over time, and that support differs among taxonomic groups and habitats. Our results have implications for basic and applied research, policy making, and invasive species management, as their effectiveness depends on sound hypotheses.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/03b4286a0f3d2b5e9be88e2b4d1e28271eb7f8a1

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In Ecology

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Progress toward understanding the ecological impacts of nonnative species (2013, background): “Although some invasive animals (e.g., cane toads Bufo marinus) can produce toxic secretions that can damage predator populations (Letnic et al. 2008), the novel weapons hypothesis has been studied exclusively for terrestrial plants to date (Jeschke et al. 2012).”
Aquatic invasive species: challenges for the future (2015, background): “Thus, tests on the role of biotic resistance often use diversity as a surrogate for the resistance of native (e.g., Fridley et al., 2007; Jeschke et al., 2012 and references therein).”
Structural diversity as a predictor of ecosystem function (2019, background): “This is consistent with both facilitation at a large spatial extent (Byers and Noonburg 2003) and with mixed support for the biotic resistance hypothesis (Jeschke et al 2012).”
MAcroecological Framework for Invasive Aliens (MAFIA): disentangling large-scale context dependence in biological invasions (2020, background): “The majority of hypotheses in invasion ecology have received support in some circumstances (and failed in others), but those hypotheses that merge the habitat- and species-perspective perform best (Richardson and Pyšek 2006; Jeschke et al. 2012).”
The role of eco-evolutionary experience in invasion success (2013, neutral): “It ties in with the idea of a ‘hierarchy of hypotheses’ (Jeschke et al. 2012, Heger et al., in press), where overarching conceptual ideas in invasion ecology (e.g. the concept of eco-evolutionary experience) branch into more precise and testable hypotheses at lower levels (e.g. enemy release, EICA,…”
Advancing impact prediction and hypothesis testing in invasion ecology using a comparative functional response approach (2014, background): “Secondly, robust tests of major hypotheses in invasion ecology are often lacking, as evidenced by equivocal support for many such hypotheses (e.g. Catford et al. 2009; Davis 2011; Jeschke et al. 2012; Ricciardi et al. 2013).”
Functional responses can unify invasion ecology (2017, background): “biased towards plants or animals in their development and testing (Catford et al. 2009; Jeschke et al. 2012).”
Aquatic invasive species: general trends in the literature and introduction to the special issue (2014, background): “…published) in aquatic science This over-representation of terrestrial, compared to aquatic organisms, has also been found in other large systematic literature reviews about invasions (Jeschke et al., 2012; Lowry et al., 2013) , and it represents a general trend in several other fields of ecology.”