Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Mediterranean
Europe
Germany
Germany
Finland
Poland
Britain (+Ireland)
Turkey
Turkey
France
Czech Republic
Italy
Switzerland
Denmark
USA
California
Alaska
Florida
New England
Great Plains
Texas
Canada
Newfoundland
Greenland
Mexico
Australia
Uganda
Egypt
Rwanda
Tanzania
Namibia
Senegal
South Africa
South Africa
Bermuda
Bahamas
Cuba
Puerto Rico
Hawaii
Cook Islands
Fiji
French Polynesia
New Caledonia
Solomon Islands
New Zealand
Figure 2. Non-native speciesof vascular plants have invaded many parts of the globe. The total number (bar length) of native (tan) and non-native
(red) speciesin a region varies from about 500in Bermuda to more than 23,000in the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.The percentage
of non-native speciesin a particular region tends to be greater on island habitats, but many specieshave invaded the continents as well. Sources:
a -Quezal, Burbero, Bonini and Loisel1990; b -Heywood 1985,estimate of native species;c -Weber (in preparation); d -Rejmanek and Randall
1994;e- Rejmanek (unpublished); f -U.S. Congress,Office of Technology Assessment 1993;g -Kruger, Breytenbach, Macdonald and Richardson
1989;h -Wagner, Herbst and Sohmer 1990;i- Given 1992;j -Heywood 1989.
vidual to perceive that the invasions are There are several components to glob- geochemical cycle of nitrogen and other
almost everywhere. In part, it may also al change that are widely recognized as elements, the production and release of
reflect a narrow view of global environ- being caused by the explosive growth of persistent organic compounds such as
mental change, one that emphasizes cli- industry and agriculture in the past two the chlorofluorocarbons, widespread
matic change to the exclusion of other, centuries. These include the increasing changes in land use and land cover, and
equally significant components of hu- concentration of carbon dioxide in the at- the hunting and harvesting of natural
man-caused global change. mosphere, alterations to the global bio- animal populations. To this list we add
another component-the introduction of Consider the extent of the invasions islands often have more non-native
non-native species to habitats and on the basis of some countries where species of fish than native fishes. Even
ecosystemsthat were previously isolated reasonable data exist. Australia, Cana- many continental areas, such as Cali-
from each other. To varying degreeseach da and the United States each harbor fornia, Europe and Brazil, have rela-
of these components plays a role in en- more than 1,500 species of invasive tively large numbers of non-native fish
hancing the greenhouse effect or reduc- non-native plants. (California and species. Similarly, non-native birds
ing the earth's biological diversity Florida lead the continental U .5., each have established wild populations in
(through the extinction of genetically dis-with close to 1,000 invasive introduced many parts of the world. Here again,
tinct populations or species). species of plants.) Flora of many Euro- the proportion of non-native species
pean countries have several hundred tends to be greater on islands than on
Invasions Are Everywhere introduced species, and South Africa the continents. Nevertheless, non-na-
Until recently the worst efft;Cts of bio- alone supports nearly 800 species of tive avian species can be quite abun-
logical invasions were largely consid- non-native plant invaders. dant on the continents-consider the
ered to be restricted to oceanic islands. As a proportion of the total flora and widespread and abundant European
But it is becoming increasingly appar- fauna in a particular country, the non- house sparrow and the European star-
ent that non-native species are also native species may comprise anywhere ling in North America.
abundant on the continents. Attaching a from a few percent to more than 20 per-
number to the magnitude of these conti- cent of the total number. Remote islands Parks as Canaries
nental invasions is not always an easy tend to have a relatively greater propor- One way to assessthe extent of the bio-
task, however. Two different inveStiga- tion of non-native species, often as logical invasions in a particular region is
tors may cite disparate numbers of in- much as 50 percent of the total number. to take a closer look at parks and bio-
troduced species for a particular region. Another general tendency is that the logical preserves. These habitats gener-
This may be due to differences in the de- total numbers of invading introduced ally represent the least disturbed areas
finition of "introduced species," the geo- species are greater for plants than for of land in a country. A former director
graphic boundaries used for the assess- animals. This is partly because the in- of the U.S. National Park Service cham-
ment or the year in which the study took troduction of animal species (with the pioned the concept that the park lands
place. Even so, the results of different exception of insects) typically requires are an environmental analogue of min-
studies almost always suggest that the a greater degree of purposeful human ers' canaries-relatively pristine sites
scale of the continental invasions is intervention. This is especially true for where the extent of large-scale environ-
much larger than is widely supposed. birds and fishes. Nonetheless, isolated mental changes might be evaluated.
isolated areas were to be brought into plants and animals across the two con- Hawaiian Islands arose from a success-
contact with each other, some species tinents. The result was asymmetrical: ful colonization by one group or an-
would eventually be lost through com- Although some South American mam- other every 50,000 years or so. Recent-
petition, predation or disease. Regional mals (notably the opossum) crossed ly, however, about 15 to 20 insect
distinctiveness begets global diversity. the isthmus, many more North Ameri- species become established on the is-
One of us (Westbrooks) and col- can mammals spread into the South- lands every year (Beardsley 1979).Sim-
leagues applied this approach to calcu- ern Hemisphere. The invasion of the ilarly, in eastern North America, there
late the potential for extinctions result- North American mammals was associ- is only one known instance in the post-
ing from biological invasions. Based on ated with a significant increase in the glacial past (within about 10,000 years)
known species-area relationships and extinction rate for the native mammals in which a species of tree (the eastern
the number of mammalian species pre- of South America (Marshall, Webb, hemlock) declined over much of its
sent on each continent, they calculated Sepkowski and Raup 1982). range in a way that is consistent with
that a single supercontinent comprising an attack by a pathogen (Davis 1981).
all the land area on the earth would What Can Be Done? Yet several species of American trees
support about 2,000mammalian species. In our attempts to convince others of have been devastated by introduced
In fact the earth supports about 4,200 the si~cance of biological invasions pathogens in the past century alone.
species of mammals. This analysis im- we have run into two major obstacles. Both examples suggest that recent in-
plies that the complete breakdown of First, there is a belief that invasions rep- vasions are very different from those
biogeographic barriers might result in resent a natural process that has always of the past.
the eventual extinction of more than been a part of evolutionary history. The It is true that stemming the tide ofbio-
half of the earth's mammalian species. second is a feeling that the easeof travel logical invasions poses a huge challenge
We think that estimating the poten- and the continued expansion of the to the ingenuity of humankind. But it is
tial for extinction with species-area re- global economy will make it impossible not hopeless. A large part of the task is
lationships is as valid as estimates that to prevent invasions. simply convincing our colleagues, stu-
are based on the loss and fragmenta- It is of course true that invasions dents and the public at large that it is a
tion of habitats (Wilson 1992). This ap- (like extinctions) have always been problem worthy of our best efforts. A
proach is also supported by paleobio- with us. What differs now is the in- greater awareness of the issues increases
logical evidence. About 3 million years creased rate of the invasions, which is the likelihood that citizens will respond
ago North and South America became so large as to represent a difference in in a positive way. In some respectsthis is
connected by the Isthmus of Panama, kind rather than degree. For example, already being achieved at a local level in
which allowed a massive exchange of until recently all of the insects on the California, Hawaii and Florida. Here the
prevention of biological invasions is be-
coming popular as county councils con-
sider the creation of emergency funds for 4,000
the conh"ol of invasive species to assure
the protection of biodiversity, the local 00
Q)
lifestyles and the tourist industry. Ulti- 'u
Q)
mately; reducing the extent of biological g. 3,000
invasions may prove to be as rewarding c
.~
as reducing the rate of fossil-fuel con- m
E
sumption-while being less of a threat E
ca
to economic growth and lifestyles. E
2,000
The legal framework concerning the a
control and quarantine of plants and a;
.0
animals also needs improvement. Ex- E
~
c
isting laws and policies such as the
Federal Noxious Weed Act of 1974, the 1,000
Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Pre-
vention and Control Act of 1990 and
the Lacey Act can be enforced and
strengthened. Given a reasonable 0
amount of public support, intelligent 107
new approaches can be devised. More-
land area (square kilometers)
over, concerned and informed citizens
can participate personally by recogniz- Figure 10.Number of mammalian speciesin a given areaof land is dependent on the isolation of
these speciesfrom eachother. If the earth's land masseswere united into a single supercontinent,
ing incipient invaders and preventing
the total area of land (more than 108 square kilometers) is projected to support about 2,000
them from spreading. The concept of
speciesof mammals (blue dot). However, there are about 4,200mammalian specieson earth (red
thinking globally and acting locally ap- dot). The authors suggest that the current geographic isolation of the earth's species promotes
plies well to stoppin~iological inva- and maintains biological diversity. By transporting other species across natural geographic
sions. No other for of global change boundaries, human beings threaten to reduce the diversity of life on the earth. The projected to-
offers educated and dedicated individ- tal number of mammalian speciesis based on surveys (black dots) showing a linear relationship
uals such an opportunity to make a between the number of species in a region and the logarithm of the area of land in the region.
lasting difference. (Adapted from work by A. Launer of the Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University.)
Figure 11.The growth of industry and agriculture in the past 200years has promoted at least six identifiable components (middle row} of global en-
vironmental change.To varying degreesthese components alter the earth's climate and reduce the planet's biological diversity. A general notion of
the magnitude of these effects (arrow thicknesses}can be estimated, but the interrelationships and the synergistic effects of all six components have
yet to be fully appreciated. (After Vitousek 1994.}
~
and Aquatic Sciences 48 (supplement Quezal, P., M. Burbero, G. Bonini, and R.
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