[APWG] JOURNAL ARTICLE: No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide

[De Angelis, Patricia]

This article discusses major taxon group "invasions" around the world -
including vascular plants!

**I am a little surprised that Hawai'i isn't in the red zone, because in
2014 I heard from a colleague there that they have 1,597 nonnative plant
species that have become established.

No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide.
Seebens et al 2017.
Nature Communications. doi:10.1038/ncomms14435

Abstract:
"Although research on human-mediated exchanges of species has substantially
intensified during the last centuries, we know surprisingly little about
temporal dynamics of alien species accumulations across regions and taxa.
Using a novel database of 45,813 first records of 16,926 established alien
species, we show that the annual rate of first records worldwide has
increased during the last 200 years, with 37% of all first records reported
most recently (1970–2014). Inter-continental and inter-taxonomic variation
can be largely attributed to the diaspora of European settlers in the
nineteenth century and to the acceleration in trade in the twentieth
century. For all taxonomic groups, the increase in numbers of alien species
does not show any sign of saturation and most taxa even show increases in
the rate of first records over time. This highlights that past efforts to
mitigate invasions have not been effective enough to keep up with
increasing globalization."

Details:
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14435
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