Alien versus native species as drivers of recent extinctions

By T. Blackburn, C. Bellard, A. Ricciardi. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2019

345 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Native plants and animals can rapidly become superabundant and dominate ecosystems, leading some people to claim that native species are no less likely than alien species to cause environmental damage such as biodiversity loss. We compared how frequently alien species and native species have been implicated as drivers of recent extinctions in a comprehensive global database, the 2017 IUCN Red List. Alien species were considered to be a contributing cause of 25% of plant extinctions and 33% of animal extinctions, whereas native species were implicated in less than 3% and 5% of animal and plant extinctions, respectively. When listed as a putative driver of recent extinctions, native species were more often associated with co-occurring drivers than were alien species. Our results add a new line of evidence that the biogeographic origin (evolutionary history) of a species is a determining factor of its potential to cause disruptive environmental impacts.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8800f927bff580728d9b9d4ec7888919b2cc49d4

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecological Modeling

1. A. Melotto
2. R. Manenti
3. L. Cavieres
4. M. Falaschi
5. Gentile Francesco Ficetola

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. L. Cavieres
2. Gentile Francesco Ficetola

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. R. Manenti
2. L. Cavieres
3. Gentile Francesco Ficetola
4. E. Badano

Citations in the corpus

• Invasive Species and Amphibian Conservation (2020, background): “Of about 800 animal extinctions that have been recorded since 1500, IAS have been implicated in 33% of them (Blackburn et al. 2019).”
• Facilitation and the invasibility of plant communities (2021, background): “Expansions of non- native species negatively affect native species, communities and ecosystem functioning (Blackburn et al., 2019; Pyšek et al., 2012; Simberloff et al., 2013; Vilà et al., 2011).”