What determines the impact of alien birds and mammals in Europe?

Kumschick, Sabrina; Bacher, Sven; Blackburn, Tim M. (2013). What determines the impact of alien birds and mammals in Europe? Biological invasions, 15(4), pp. 785-797. Kluwer 10.1007/s10530-012-0326-6

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An often-cited reason for studying the process of invasion by alien species is that the understanding sought can be used to mitigate the impacts of the invaders. Here, we present an analysis of the correlates of local impacts of established alien bird and mammal species in Europe, using a recently described metric to quantify impact. Large-bodied, habitat generalist bird and mammal species that are widespread in their native range, have the greatest impacts in their alien European ranges, supporting our hypothesis that surrogates for the breadth and the amount of resources a species uses are good indicators of its impact. However, not all surrogates are equally suitable. Impacts are generally greater for mammal species giving birth to larger litters, but in contrast are greater for bird species laying smaller clutches. There is no effect of diet breadth on impacts in birds or mammals. On average, mammals have higher impacts than birds. However, the relationships between impact and several traits show common slopes for birds and mammals, and relationships between impact and body mass and latitude do not differ between birds and mammals. These results may help to anticipate which species would have large impacts if introduced, and so direct efforts to prevent such introductions.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Community Ecology [discontinued]
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)

UniBE Contributor:

Kumschick, Sabrina, Bacher, Sven

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)
500 Science > 580 Plants (Botany)

ISSN:

1387-3547

Publisher:

Kluwer

Language:

English

Submitter:

Alexander Strauss

Date Deposited:

04 Aug 2014 10:59

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:31

Publisher DOI:

10.1007/s10530-012-0326-6

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Bird Clutch size Diet breadth, Exotic, Habitat breadth, Invasion, Litter size, Mammal, Species traits

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.47449

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/47449

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