title: Global trade will accelerate plant invasions in emerging economies under climate change.
abstract: Trade plays a key role in the spread of alien species and has arguably contributed to the recent enormous acceleration of biological invasions, thus homogenizing biotas worldwide. Combining data on 60-year trends of bilateral trade, as well as on biodiversity and climate, we modeled the global spread of plant species among 147 countries. The model results were compared with a recently compiled unique global data set on numbers of naturalized alien vascular plant species representing the most comprehensive collection of naturalized plant distributions currently available. The model identifies major source regions, introduction routes, and hot spots of plant invasions that agree well with observed naturalized plant numbers. In contrast to common knowledge, we show that the 'imperialist dogma,' stating that Europe has been a net exporter of naturalized plants since colonial times, does not hold for the past 60 years, when more naturalized plants were being imported to than exported from Europe. Our results highlight that the current distribution of naturalized plants is best predicted by socioeconomic activities 20 years ago. We took advantage of the observed time lag and used trade developments until recent times to predict naturalized plant trajectories for the next two decades. This shows that particularly strong increases in naturalized plant numbers are expected in the next 20 years for emerging economies in megadiverse regions. The interaction with predicted future climate change will increase invasions in northern temperate countries and reduce them in tropical and (sub)tropical regions, yet not by enough to cancel out the trade-related increase.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky Straße 9-11, Oldenburg, Germany.|Division of Conservation, Landscape and Vegetation Ecology, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, 1030, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Hanno
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Seebens
authors.affiliation: Division of Conservation, Landscape and Vegetation Ecology, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, 1030, Vienna, Austria.|Department of Biological Diversity and Nature Conservation, Environment Agency, Spittelauer Laende 5, 1090, Vienna, Austria.|Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa.
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Essl
authors.affiliation: Ecology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, 78457, Konstanz, Germany.
authors.forename: Wayne
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad, Universidad de Concepcion, Victoria 631, 403000, Concepcion, Chile.
authors.forename: Nicol
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fuentes
authors.affiliation: Division of Conservation, Landscape and Vegetation Ecology, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, 1030, Vienna, Austria.|Department of Biological Diversity and Nature Conservation, Environment Agency, Spittelauer Laende 5, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Dietmar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moser
authors.affiliation: Institute of Botany, Department of Invasion Ecology, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, CZ-252 43, Průhonice, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pergl
authors.affiliation: Institute of Botany, Department of Invasion Ecology, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, CZ-252 43, Průhonice, Czech Republic.|Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, CZ-128 44, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pyšek
authors.affiliation: Ecology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, 78457, Konstanz, Germany.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Kleunen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Maulbeerallee 1, D-14469, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Ewald
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.affiliation: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Marten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.affiliation: Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky Straße 9-11, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blasius
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003132:Commerce; D003906:Developing Countries; D058865:Introduced Species; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D063148:Plant Dispersal
keywords: alien vascular plants; bioinvasion; climate warming; global spread; imperialist dogma; model; network of plant invasion