[Coral-List] Exotic vs. Invasive

[William Capman]

This would be consistent with how terrestrial plant ecologists/biologists would use the terms exotic, naturalized, and invasive in the context of introduced plants.  

There are many introduced (i.e. exotic) plants (in many parts of the world) that are maintaining fairly harmless stable populations in places where they are not native - these would be considered to be naturalized species.  It is really only the ones that get to be superabundant and/or that start harming native species that people would usually refer to as being invasive.

Bill

>>> "Bruno, John"  02/15/13 2:08 PM >>>
Hi John

Exotic is any introduced species.  And there is a gigantic and never ending debate about what to call them, eg, exotic, introduced, alien, non-native, etc

The distinction with invasive is somewhat subjective and isn't set in stone, but in general, Invasive exotics are very common, probably to the point of being community dominants and potentially having negative effects on native species.  They are also considered to have become "naturalized" ie, established self-sustaining populations, which is a much lower bar than the dominance threshold and Tubastraea would certainly qualify.  In fact, in their microhabitat, I think Tubastraea can be quite common and Id be comfortable labeling them as "invasive".  And funny, but I just had a manuscript reviewer say lionfish were not invasive, so don't be surprised to hear disagreement about this stuff.

Cheers,

JB

John F Bruno, PhD
Professor
Department of Biology
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
www.johnfbruno.com


species are exotics that

Dear List,

Ken Marks recent post concerning Tubastraea micranthus reminded me of an
incident that occurred on a recent trip to Bonaire.  A divemaster was
bemoaning the "invasion" of lionfish.  When I mentioned that the "poster
coral" for Bonaire (Tubastraea sp) was invasive, I was severely
chastised.  Lionfish were "invasive", Tubastraea was "exotic".

I noted that Ken Marks used both "exotic" and "invasion" in his e-mail.
I had never thought about the distinction before.

After Googling around a bit, I concluded that if the species under
consideration was sort of cute, it was "exotic".  If it was ugly, it was
"invasive".

While that is a vast oversimplification, I wonder if the coral-reef
community distinguishes "exotic" from "invasive" and, if so, is there a
precise definition of the difference?

John

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