Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK.
Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2021 Mar;5(3):322-329. doi: 10.1038/s41559-020-01376-x. Epub 2021 Jan 25.
The unabating rise in the number of species introduced outside of their native range makes predicting the spread of alien species an urgent challenge. Most predictions use models of the ecological niche of a species to identify suitable areas for invasion, but these predictions may have limited accuracy. Here, using the global alien avifauna, we demonstrate an alternative approach for predicting alien spread based on the environmental resistance of the landscape. This approach does not require any information on the ecological niche of the invading species and, instead, uses gradients of biotic similarity among native communities in the invaded region to predict the most likely routes of spread. We show that environmental resistance predicts patterns of spread better than a null model of random dispersal or a model based on climate matching to the native range of each species. Applying this approach to simulate future spread reveals major regional differences in projected invasion risk, shaped by proximity to existing invasion hotspots as well as gradients in environmental resistance. Our results show how environmental resistance may provide a general and complementary approach for predicting invasion risk that can be rapidly deployed even when information on the niche or the identity of potential invaders is unknown.
不断增加的外来物种数量使其分布范围超出了原有的地理范围，这使得预测外来物种的传播成为一项紧迫的挑战。大多数预测都使用物种生态位模型来识别适宜入侵的区域，但这些预测可能存在一定的局限性。在这里，我们利用全球外来鸟类区系，展示了一种基于景观环境阻力的预测外来物种传播的替代方法。这种方法不需要关于入侵物种生态位的任何信息，而是利用入侵地区本地群落之间的生物相似性梯度来预测最可能的传播途径。我们发现，环境阻力比随机扩散的零模型或基于与每个物种原生范围的气候匹配的模型更能准确预测传播模式。应用这种方法来模拟未来的传播情况，可以揭示出由于接近现有入侵热点以及环境阻力梯度的不同而导致的主要区域差异。我们的研究结果表明，环境阻力可以提供一种通用的、互补的预测入侵风险的方法，即使在不知道生态位或潜在入侵物种身份的情况下，也可以快速部署。
