GEE Seminar - Dr Jane Catford, King's College London

Academic Host: Richard Pearson
Abstract: Human introduction of species beyond their historical biogeographic boundaries is one of the defining characteristics of the Anthropocene. Alien species invasion is both a cause and consequence of global environmental change, and alien species that become invasive are considered a top threat to global biodiversity. It has been argued that species biogeographic origin is unrelated to ecological impacts and the origin of a species should not influence ecosystem management. This rejection of ‘origin’ is overly simplistic. Origin effects can arise through biased sampling of the types of species transported by humans, the environmental and evolutionary context of species’ source environments, and the communities and environments to which they are introduced. In this seminar, I will illustrate how community ecology theory can be used to understand how alien plants are able to invade and dominate, why the ecological responses and effects of alien species might differ to natives, and why alien plants can potentially drive native plants to extinction.