Environment Agency Austria, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Jan 4;108(1):203-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011728108. Epub 2010 Dec 20.
Globalization and economic growth are widely recognized as important drivers of biological invasions. Consequently, there is an increasing need for governments to address the role of international trade in their strategies to prevent species introductions. However, many of the most problematic alien species are not recent arrivals but were introduced several decades ago. Hence, current patterns of alien-species richness may better reflect historical rather than contemporary human activities, a phenomenon which might be called "invasion debt." Here, we show that across 10 taxonomic groups (vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, terrestrial insects, and aquatic invertebrates) in 28 European countries, current numbers of alien species established in the wild are indeed more closely related to indicators of socioeconomic activity from the year 1900 than to those from 2000, although the majority of species introductions occurred during the second half of the 20th century. The strength of the historical signal varies among taxonomic groups, with those possessing good capabilities for dispersal (birds, insects) more strongly associated with recent socioeconomic drivers. Nevertheless, our results suggest a considerable historical legacy for the majority of the taxa analyzed. The consequences of the current high levels of socioeconomic activity on the extent of biological invasions will thus probably not be completely realized until several decades into the future.
全球化和经济增长被广泛认为是生物入侵的重要驱动因素。因此，越来越需要政府在防止物种引入的战略中考虑国际贸易的作用。然而，许多最成问题的外来物种并不是最近才到达的，而是几十年前引入的。因此，当前的外来物种丰富度模式可能更好地反映了历史而不是当代人类活动，这种现象可能被称为“入侵债务”。在这里，我们表明，在 28 个欧洲国家的 10 个分类群（维管植物、苔藓植物、真菌、鸟类、哺乳动物、爬行动物、两栖动物、鱼类、陆生昆虫和水生无脊椎动物）中，目前在野外建立的外来物种数量确实与 1900 年的社会经济活动指标更密切相关，而不是与 2000 年的指标相关，尽管大多数物种的引入发生在 20 世纪下半叶。历史信号的强度因分类群而异，具有良好扩散能力的物种（鸟类、昆虫）与最近的社会经济驱动因素的关联更强。然而，我们的研究结果表明，在分析的大多数分类群中，都存在着相当大的历史遗产。因此，直到未来几十年，当前高水平的社会经济活动对生物入侵程度的影响可能才会完全显现。
