Logo image
Historical plant introductions predict current insect invasions
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Historical plant introductions predict current insect invasions

Aymeric Bonnamour, Rachael E Blake, Andrew M Liebhold, Helen Nahrung, Alain Roques, Rebecca M Turner, Takehiko Yamanaka and Cleo Bertelsmeier
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.120(24), pp.1-7
2023
PMCID: PMC10268304
PMID: 37276425
pdf
pnas.2022218263.16 MBDownloadView
Published Version Open Access CC BY-NC-ND V4.0
url
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2221826120View
Published Version

Abstract

invasion debt nonnative insects nonnative plants species flow time lag
Thousands of insect species have been introduced outside of their native ranges, and some of them strongly impact ecosystems and human societies. Because a large fraction of insects feed on or are associated with plants, nonnative plants provide habitat and resources for invading insects, thereby facilitating their establishment. Furthermore, plant imports represent one of the main pathways for accidental nonnative insect introductions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that plant invasions precede and promote insect invasions. We found that geographical variation in current nonnative insect flows was best explained by nonnative plant flows dating back to 1900 rather than by more recent plant flows. Interestingly, nonnative plant flows were a better predictor of insect invasions than potentially confounding socioeconomic variables. Based on the observed time lag between plant and insect invasions, we estimated that the global insect invasion debt consists of 3,442 region-level introductions, representing a potential increase of 35% of insect invasions. This debt was most important in the Afrotropics, the Neotropics, and Indomalaya, where we expect a 10 to 20-fold increase in discoveries of new nonnative insect species. Overall, our results highlight the strong link between plant and insect invasions and show that limiting the spread of nonnative plants might be key to preventing future invasions of both plants and insects.

Details

Metrics

1 File views/ downloads
49 Record Views

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas
Ecology

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#14 Life Below Water
#15 Life on Land

Source: SDGs from InCites

Logo image