Impacts of invasive biota in forest ecosystems in an aboveground–belowground context

By David A. Wardle, D. Peltzer. Biological Invasions, 2017

103 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Forest ecosystems world-wide are being subjected to invasion by organisms representing all domains of life. Here we use a combined aboveground-belowground approach to provide a conceptual framework for assessing how forests respond to biological invasions. We first address mechanisms by which invasive plants and aboveground and belowground consumers impact on forests, and highlight that although we have a growing understanding of the determinants of the effects of invasive plants, for invasive consumers we have yet to move from a series of iconic case studies to the development of general principles. We also address the effects of invasive biota in the context of the drivers of invasion, co-invasion and invasional meltdown, the issue of simultaneous species gains and losses, and forest restoration and recovery post-invasion. We then highlight areas that would benefit from further work, particularly regarding underlying mechanisms, determinants of context-dependency of invader effects, and linkages between causes and consequences of invasion. In concluding, we emphasize that biological invaders have the potential for large-scale and long-term impacts on forest processes, and consideration of these impacts in an aboveground-belowground context will enable better prediction of future responses of forests to invaders and their management as well as of restoration efforts.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/898bb91a7924528961589c58f21af6e3f98682cd

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Insect Science

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Ecology and management of invasive Pinaceae around the world: progress and challenges (2017, background): “mycorrhizal fungi) have rarely been attempted, such actions may be crucial for achieving success, especially in heavily modified environments (Wardle and Peltzer 2017).”
Towards a framework for understanding the context dependence of impacts of non‐native tree species (2020, background): “…context dependence of non-native species impacts and is critical for informing decisions on both management effectiveness in mitigating invasion impacts, and on whether additional activities such as active restoration following removal of the non-native species are needed (Wardle & Peltzer, 2017).”