[Coral-List] Terminology for invasive species

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Mon Feb 18 20:23:32 EST 2013


Thank you, Alfonso.  May I quote the abstract of one of these articles:

Ricciardi A., J. Cohen. 2007. The invasiveness of an introduced species
does not predict its impact. Biological Invasions 9:309-305.

Abstract

"Inconsistent use of terminology plagues the study and management of
biological invasions. The term “invasive” has been used to describe *inter
alia* (1) any introduced non-indigenous species; (2) introduced species
that spread rapidly in a new region; and (3) introduced species that have
harmful environmental impacts, particularly on native species. The second
definition in various forms is more commonly used by ecologists, while the
third definition is pervasive in policy papers and legislation. We tested
the relationship between the invasiveness of an introduced species and its
impact on native biodiversity. We quantified a species’ invasiveness by
both its rate of establishment and its rate of spread, while its impact was
assigned a categorical ranking based on the documented effects of the
invader on native species populations. We found no correlations between
these variables for introduced plants, mammals, fishes, invertebrates,
amphibians and reptiles, suggesting that the mechanisms of invasion and
impact are not strongly linked. Our results support the view that the term
“invasive” should not be used to connote negative environmental impact."
I think this article supports the view that we would do well to distinguish
these three processes, since they found no correlation between the second
and third.  I repeat my suggestion that we call the third "harmful invasive
species," so the terms for the three would be "introduced species"
"invasive species" and "harmful invasive species."

The other article goes into the mechanisms in even more details, and also
details a long list of terms people have used.  it is available on the web,
just search for the title on Google Scholar.

Cheers,  Doug


On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 6:38 AM, Alfonso Aguilar-Perera <
alfaguilar at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> These references may shed some light to the problems in the terminology for
> "invasive", "exotic" and "introduced".
>
> Colautti R.I,
>
> H. J. MacIsaa. 2004.A neutral terminology to define ‘invasive’ species.
> Diversity and Distributions 10:135-141.
> DOI: 10.1111/j.1366-9516.2004.00061.x
>
> Ricciardi A., J. Cohen. 2007. The invasiveness of an introduced species
> does not predict its impact. Biological Invasions 9:309-305. DOI
> 10.1007/s10530-006-9034-4
>
> Cheers,
> Alfonso Aguilar
>
> ---------------------------
> Alfonso Aguilar-Perera, Ph.D.
> Profesor-Investigador Titular C,
> Investigador-Nacional Nivel 1
> Perfil PROMEP
> Miembro del Cuerpo Académico Recursos Marinos Tropicales
> Departamento de Biología Marina
> Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia
> Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
> MÉXICO
> Tel. +52 (999) 9423200
>
>  https://sites.google.com/site/aaguilarperera/
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