Island species and habitats are particularly vulnerable to human disturbances, and anthropogenic changes are increasingly overwriting natural island biogeographic patterns. However, quantitative comparisons of how native and alien assemblages respond to human disturbances are scarce. Using data from 6,242 species of vertebrates, invertebrates and plants, from 7,718 sites on 81 islands, we model how land-use change, human population density and distance to the nearest road affect local assemblages of alien and native species on islands. We found that land-use change reduces both richness and abundance of native species, whereas the number and abundance of alien species are high in plantation forests and agricultural or urban sites. In contrast to the long-established pattern for native species (i.e., decline in species number with island isolation), more isolated islands have more alien species across most land uses than do less isolated islands. We show that alien species play a major role in the turnover of island assemblages: our models show that aliens outnumber natives among the species present at disturbed sites but absent from minimally-disturbed primary vegetation. Finally, we found a homogenization pattern for both native and alien assemblages across sites within most land uses. The declines of native species on islands in the face of human pressures, and the particular proneness to invasions of the more remote islands, highlight the need to reduce the intensity of human pressures on islands and to prevent the introduction and establishment of alien species.

Biodiversity Macroecology and Biogeography University of Goettingen Göttingen Germany

BioInvasions Global Change Macroecology Group Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research University Vienna Vienna Austria

Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use University of Goettingen Göttingen Germany

Department of Biosciences Durham University Durham United Kingdom

Department of Invasion Ecology Institute of Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Průhonice Czech Republic

Department of Life Sciences Imperial College London London United Kingdoms

Department of Life Sciences Natural History Museum London United Kingdom

Ecology Department of Biology University of Konstanz Konstanz Germany

Faculty of Science Charles Department of Ecology University Prague Czech Republic

Food Animal Health Research Program Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center The Ohio State University Wooster Ohio United States of America

Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Taizhou University Taizhou China

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Gibson L, Lee TM, Koh LP, Brook BW, Gardner TA, Barlow J, et al. Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity. Nature. 2011;478(7369):378–81. 10.1038/nature10425 PubMed DOI

Murphy GEP, Romanuk TN. A meta-analysis of declines in local species richness from human disturbances. Ecol Evol. 2014;4(1):91–103. 10.1002/ece3.909 PubMed DOI PMC

Newbold T, Hudson LN, Hill SLL, Contu S, Lysenko I, Senior RA, et al. Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature. 2015;520(7545):45–50. 10.1038/nature14324 PubMed DOI

Newbold T, Hudson LN, Hill SLL, Contu S, Gray CL, Scharlemann JPW, et al. Global patterns of terrestrial assemblage turnover within and among land uses. Ecography (Cop). 2016;39(12):1151–63.

De Palma A, Abrahamczyk S, Aizen MA, Albrecht M, Basset Y, Bates A, et al. Predicting bee community responses to land-use changes: Effects of geographic and taxonomic biases. Sci Rep. 2016;6(1):31153 10.1038/srep31153 PubMed DOI PMC

Phillips HRP, Newbold T, Purvis A. Land-use effects on local biodiversity in tropical forests vary between continents. Biodivers Conserv. 2017;26(9):2251–70. 10.1007/s10531-017-1356-2 PubMed DOI PMC

Paulay G. Biodiversity on Oceanic Islands: Its Origin and Extinction 1. Am Zool. 1994;34(1):134–44.

Simberloff D. Extinction-proneness of island species—Causes and management implications. Raffles Bull Zool. 2000;48(1):1–9.

Sakai AK, Wagner WL, Mehrhoff LA. Patterns of Endangerment in the Hawaiian Flora. Funk V, editor. Syst Biol. 2002;51(2):276–302. 10.1080/10635150252899770 PubMed DOI

Capinha C, Seebens H, Cassey P, García-Díaz P, Lenzner B, Mang T, et al. Diversity, biogeography and the global flows of alien amphibians and reptiles. Nori J, editor. Divers Distrib. 2017;23(11):1313–22.

Dyer EE, Cassey P, Redding DW, Collen B, Franks V, Gaston KJ, et al. The Global Distribution and Drivers of Alien Bird Species Richness. Ricklefs R, editor. PLOS Biol. 2017;15(1):e2000942 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000942 PubMed DOI PMC

Pyšek P, Pergl J, Essl F, Lenzner B, Dawson W, Kreft H, et al. Naturalized alien flora of the world. Preslia. 2017;89(3):203–74.

Dawson W, Moser D, van Kleunen M, Kreft H, Pergl J, Pyšek P, et al. Global hotspots and correlates of alien species richness across taxonomic groups. Nat Ecol Evol. 2017;1(7):0186.

Simberloff D. Why Do Introduced Species Appear to Devastate Islands More Than Mainland Areas? Pacific Sci. 1995;49(1):87–97.

Sax DF, Brown JH. The paradox of invasion. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2000;9(5):363–71.

Denslow JS. Weeds in Paradise: Thoughts on the Invasibility of Tropical Islands. Ann Missouri Bot Gard. 2003;90(1):119–27.

Dalmazzone S, Giaccaria S. Economic drivers of biological invasions: A worldwide, bio-geographic analysis. Ecol Econ. 2014;105:154–65.

Herben T. Species pool size and invasibility of island communities: A null model of sampling effects. Ecol Lett. 2005;8(9):909–17. PubMed

Whittaker RJ, Fernández-Palacios JM, Matthews TJ, Borregaard MK, Triantis KA. Island biogeography: Taking the long view of nature’s laboratories. Science (80-). 2017;357(6354):eaam8326. PubMed

Gillespie RG, Claridge EM, Roderick GK. Biodiversity dynamics in isolated island communities: interaction between natural and human-mediated processes. Mol Ecol. 2008;17(1):45–57. 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03466.x PubMed DOI

Adler GH, Levins R. The island syndrome in rodent populations. Q Rev Biol. 1994;69(4):473–90. 10.1086/418744 PubMed DOI

Siliceo I, Díaz JA. A comparative study of clutch size, range size, and the conservation status of island vs. mainland lacertid lizards. Biol Conserv. 2010;143(11):2601–8.

Meiri S, Brown JH, Sibly RM. The ecology of lizard reproductive output. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2012;21(5):592–602.

Borges PAV, Lobo JM, Azevedo EB, Gaspar CS, Melo C, Nunes LV. Invasibility and species richness of island endemic arthropods: a general model of endemic vs. exotic species. J Biogeogr. 2006;33(1):169–87.

Meijer SS, Whittaker RJ, Borges PAV. The effects of land-use change on arthropod richness and abundance on Santa Maria Island (Azores): unmanaged plantations favour endemic beetles. J Insect Conserv. 2011;15(4):505–22.

Marini L, Battisti A, Bona E, Federici G, Martini F, Pautasso M, et al. Alien and native plant life-forms respond differently to human and climate pressures. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2012;21(5):534–44.

Sakai AK, Allendorf FW, Holt JS, Lodge DM, Molofsky J, With KA, et al. The Population Biology of Invasive Species. Annu Rev Ecol Syst. 2001;32(1):305–32.

Hamilton MA, Murray BR, Cadotte MW, Hose GC, Baker AC, Harris CJ, et al. Life-history correlates of plant invasiveness at regional and continental scales. Ecol Lett. 2005;8(10):1066–74.

Cadotte MW, Murray BR, Lovett-Doust J. Ecological patterns and biological invasions: Using regional species inventories in macroecology. Biol Invasions. 2006;8(4):809–21.

Lockwood JL, Cassey P, Blackburn T. The role of propagule pressure in explaining species invasions. Trends Ecol Evol. 2005;20(5):223–8. 10.1016/j.tree.2005.02.004 PubMed DOI

Redding DW, Pigot AL, Dyer EE, Şekercioğlu ÇH, Kark S, Blackburn TM. Location-level processes drive the establishment of alien bird populations worldwide. Nature. 2019;571(7763):103–6. 10.1038/s41586-019-1292-2 PubMed DOI PMC

Cardillo M, Mace GM, Jones KE, Bielby J, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Sechrest W, et al. Multiple causes of high extinction risk in large mammal species. Science (80-). 2005;309(5738):1239–41. 10.1126/science.1116030 PubMed DOI

Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Hoffmann M, Wirsing AJ, McCauley DJ. Extinction risk is most acute for the world’s largest and smallest vertebrates. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2017;114(40):10678–83. 10.1073/pnas.1702078114 PubMed DOI PMC

McKinney ML, Lockwood JL. Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction. Trends Ecol Evol. 1999;14(11):450–3. 10.1016/s0169-5347(99)01679-1 PubMed DOI

Collen B, Dulvy NK, Gaston KJ, Gärdenfors U, Keith DA, Punt AE, et al. Clarifying misconceptions of extinction risk assessment with the IUCN Red List. Biol Lett. 2016;12(4):20150843 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0843 PubMed DOI PMC

Socolar JB, Gilroy JJ, Kunin WE, Edwards DP. How Should Beta-Diversity Inform Biodiversity Conservation? Trends Ecol Evol. 2016;31(1):67–80. 10.1016/j.tree.2015.11.005 PubMed DOI

Arévalo JR, Delgado JD, Otto R, Naranjo A, Salas M, Fernández-Palacios JM. Distribution of alien vs. native plant species in roadside communities along an altitudinal gradient in Tenerife and Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst. 2005;7(3):185–202.

Acevedo MA, Restrepo C. Land-cover and land-use change and its contribution to the large-scale organization of Puerto Rico’s bird assemblages. Divers Distrib. 2008;14(1):114–22.

MacArthur RH, Wilson EO. The theory of island biogeography. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1967.

Blackburn TM, Cassey P, Lockwood JL. The island biogeography of exotic bird species. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2008;17(2):246–51.

Helmus MR, Mahler DL, Losos JB. Island biogeography of the Anthropocene. Nature. 2014;513(7519):543–6. 10.1038/nature13739 PubMed DOI

Moser D, Lenzner B, Weigelt P, Dawson W, Kreft H, Pergl J, et al. Remoteness promotes biological invasions on islands worldwide. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2018;115(37):9270–5. 10.1073/pnas.1804179115 PubMed DOI PMC

Lockwood JL, Cassey P, Blackburn TM. The more you introduce the more you get: the role of colonization pressure and propagule pressure in invasion ecology. Divers Distrib. 2009;15(5):904–10.

Dyer EE, Cassey P, Redding DW, Collen B, Franks V, Gaston KJ, et al. The Global Distribution and Drivers of Alien Bird Species Richness. Ricklefs R, editor. PLOS Biol. 2017;15(1):e2000942 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000942 PubMed DOI PMC

Westphal MI, Browne M, MacKinnon K, Noble I. The link between international trade and the global distribution of invasive alien species. Biol Invasions. 2008;10(4):391–8.

Hulme PE. Trade, transport and trouble: managing invasive species pathways in an era of globalization. J Appl Ecol. 2009;46(1):10–8.

Essl F, Dawson W, Kreft H, Pergl J, Pyšek P, van Kleunen M, et al. Drivers of the relative richness of naturalized and invasive plant species on Earth. AoB Plants. 2019;11(5):1–13. 10.1093/aobpla/plz051 PubMed DOI PMC

Hudson LN, Newbold T, Contu S, Hill SLL, Lysenko I, De Palma A, et al. The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project. Ecol Evol. 2017;7(1):145–88. 10.1002/ece3.2579 PubMed DOI PMC

Hudson LN, Newbold T, Contu S, Hill SLL, Lysenko I, De Palma A, et al. The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts. Ecol Evol. 2014;4(24):4701–35. 10.1002/ece3.1303 PubMed DOI PMC

Wilford GE, Brown PJ. Maps of late Mesozoic-Cenozoic Gondwana break-up: some palaeogeographical implications. In: Hill RS, editor. History of the Australian Vegetation: Cretaceous to Recent. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press; 1994. p. 5–13.

UNEP-WCMC. Global distribution of islands; 2015. Database: Global Island Database (version 2.1).

R Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2017.

van Kleunen M, Dawson W, Essl F, Pergl J, Winter M, Weber E, et al. Global exchange and accumulation of non-native plants. Nature. 2015;525(7567):100–3. 10.1038/nature14910 PubMed DOI

van Kleunen M, Pyšek P, Dawson W, Essl F, Kreft H, Pergl J, et al. The Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database. Ecology. 2019;100(1):e02542 10.1002/ecy.2542 PubMed DOI

Weigelt P, König C, Kreft H. GIFT–A Global Inventory of Floras and Traits for macroecology and biogeography. J Biogeogr. 2020;47:16–43.

Partners TIB. The Threatened Island Biodiversity Database. 2017.

Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S. 'lme4’ package ver. 1.1–15. 2017.

CIESIN IFPRI, The World Bank CIAT. Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1): Population Density Grid. 2011. 10.1126/science.1208821 PubMed DOI

CIESIN, ITOS. Global Roads Open Access Data Set, Version 1 (gROADSv1). 2013.

Zuur AF, Ieno EN, Walker NJ, Saveliev AA, Smith GM. Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R. New York: Springer Science & Business Media; 2009.

Harrison XA. Using observation-level random effects to model overdispersion in count data in ecology and evolution. PeerJ. 2014;2:e616 10.7717/peerj.616 PubMed DOI PMC

OpenStreetMap Contributors. Land polygons. 2015.

Weigelt P, Jetz W, Kreft H. Bioclimatic and physical characterization of the world’s islands. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2013;110(38):15307–12. 10.1073/pnas.1306309110 PubMed DOI PMC

Weigelt P, Kreft H. Quantifying island isolation—insights from global patterns of insular plant species richness. Ecography (Cop). 2013;36(4):417–29.

Zuur AF, Ieno EN, Smith GM. Analyzing Ecological Data. New York: Springer Science & Business Media; 2007.

De Rosario-Martinez H. ‘phia’ package ver. 0.2–1. 2015.

Lichstein JW. Multiple regression on distance matrices: A multivariate spatial analysis tool. Plant Ecol. 2007;188(2):117–31.

Newbold T, Hudson LN, Arnell AP, Contu S, De Palma A, Ferrier S, et al. Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment. Science (80-). 2016;353(6296):288–91. 10.1126/science.aaf2201 PubMed DOI

Baselga A. Partitioning the turnover and nestedness components of beta diversity. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2010;19(1):134–43.

Nekola JC, White PS. The distance decay of similarity in biogeography and ecology. J Biogeogr. 1999;26(4):867–78.

Bolker BM, Brooks ME, Clark CJ, Geange SW, Poulsen JR, Stevens MHH, et al. Generalized linear mixed models: a practical guide for ecology and evolution. Trends Ecol Evol. 2009;24(3):127–35. 10.1016/j.tree.2008.10.008 PubMed DOI

Hijmans RJ, Williams E, Vennes C. ‘geosphere’ package ver. 1.5–7. 2017.

van der Loo M. 'gower’ package ver. 0.1.2. 2017.

Hijmans RJ, Cameron SE, Parra JL, Jones PG, Jarvis A. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int J Climatol. 2005;25(15):1965–78.

Warton DI, Hui FKC. The arcsine is asinine: the analysis of proportions in ecology. Ecology. 2011;92(1):3–10. 10.1890/10-0340.1 PubMed DOI

Phillips HRP, Halley JM, Urbina-Cardona JN, Purvis A. The effect of fragment area on site-level biodiversity. Ecography (Cop). 2018;41(7):1220–31.

Dray S, Dufour AB, Thioulouse J. ‘ade4’ package ver. 1.7–10. 2007.

Scholes RJ, Biggs R. A biodiversity intactness index. Nature. 2005;434(7029):45–9. 10.1038/nature03289 PubMed DOI

Newbold T, Hudson LN, Contu S, Hill SLL, Beck J, Liu Y, et al. Widespread winners and narrow-ranged losers: Land use homogenizes biodiversity in local assemblages worldwide. Morlon H, editor. PLOS Biol. 2018;16(12):e2006841 10.1371/journal.pbio.2006841 PubMed DOI PMC

Pyšek P, Bacher S, Chytrý M, Jarošík V, Wild J, Celesti-Grapow L, et al. Contrasting patterns in the invasions of European terrestrial and freshwater habitats by alien plants, insects and vertebrates. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2010;19(3):317–31.

Catford JA, Daehler CC, Murphy HT, Sheppard AW, Hardesty BD, Westcott DA, et al. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis and plant invasions: Implications for species richness and management. Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst. 2012;14(3):231–41.

Lembrechts JJ, Pauchard A, Lenoir J, Nuñez MA, Geron C, Ven A, et al. Disturbance is the key to plant invasions in cold environments. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2016;113(49):14061–6. 10.1073/pnas.1608980113 PubMed DOI PMC

Maxwell SL, Fuller RA, Brooks TM, Watson JEM. Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers. Nature. 2016;536(7615):143–5. 10.1038/536143a PubMed DOI

Brummitt NA, Bachman SP, Griffiths-Lee J, Lutz M, Moat JF, Farjon A, et al. Green Plants in the Red: A Baseline Global Assessment for the IUCN Sampled Red List Index for Plants. Jenkins CN, editor. PLoS One. 2015;10(8):e0135152 10.1371/journal.pone.0135152 PubMed DOI PMC

Purvis A, Newbold T, De Palma A, Contu S, Hill SLL, Sanchez-Ortiz K, et al. Modelling and Projecting the Response of Local Terrestrial Biodiversity Worldwide to Land Use and Related Pressures: The PREDICTS Project. In: Advances in Ecological Research. 2018.

Pouteau R, Hulme PE, Duncan RP. Widespread native and alien plant species occupy different habitats. Ecography (Cop). 2015;38(5):462–71.

Pyšek P. Alien and native species in Central European urban floras: a quantitative comparison. J Biogeogr. 1998;25(1):155–63.

McIntyre NE. Ecology of Urban Arthropods: a Review and a Call to Action. Ann Entomol Soc Am. 2000;93(4):825–35.

McKinney ML. Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Conservation: The impacts of urbanization on native species are poorly studied, but educating a highly urbanized human population about these impacts can greatly improve species conservation in all ecosystems. Bioscience. 2002;52(10):883–90.

Rembold K, Mangopo H, Tjitrosoedirdjo SS, Kreft H. Plant diversity, forest dependency, and alien plant invasions in tropical agricultural landscapes. Biol Conserv. 2017;213:234–42.

Monroe AP, Hill JG, Martin JA. Spread of exotic grass in grazed native grass pastures and responses of insect communities. Restor Ecol. 2017;25(4):539–48.

Kowarik I. Novel urban ecosystems, biodiversity, and conservation. Environ Pollut. 2011;159(8–9):1974–83. 10.1016/j.envpol.2011.02.022 PubMed DOI

van Kleunen M, Essl F, Pergl J, Brundu G, Carboni M, Dullinger S, et al. The changing role of ornamental horticulture in alien plant invasions. Biol Rev. 2018;93(3):1421–37. 10.1111/brv.12402 PubMed DOI

McKinney ML. Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization. Biol Conserv. 2006;127(3):247–60.

Pyšek P, Richardson DM. Traits Associated with Invasiveness in Alien Plants: Where Do we Stand? In: Biological Invasions. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 2007. p. 97–125.

Roderick GK, Vernon P. Biological invasions. In: Gillespie RG, Clague DA, editors. Encyclopedia of Islands. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2009. p. 475–80.

Lonsdale WM. Global Patterns of Plant Invasions and the Concept of Invasibility. Ecology. 1999;80(5):1522–36.

Gillespie RG, Baldwin BG. Island biogeography of remote archipelagoes. In: Losos JB, Ricklefs RE, editors. The theory of island biogeography revisited. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2010. p. 358–87.

Kennedy TA, Naeem S, Howe KM, Knops JMH, Tilman D, Reich P. Biodiversity as a barrier to ecological invasion. Nature. 2002;417(6889):636–8. 10.1038/nature00776 PubMed DOI

Whittaker RJ, Fernandez-Palacios JM. Island biogeography. Ecology, evolution and conservation. New York: Oxford University Press; 2007.

Allen VG, Batello C, Berretta EJ, Hodgson J, Kothmann M, Li X, et al. An international terminology for grazing lands and grazing animals. Grass Forage Sci. 2011;66(1):2–28.

Ellis EC, Ramankutty N. Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Front Ecol Environ. 2008;6(8):439–47.

Manor R, Cohen O, Saltz D. Community homogenization and the invasiveness of commensal species in Mediterranean afforested landscapes. Biol Invasions. 2008;10(4):507–15.

La Sorte FA, Aronson MFJ, Williams NSG, Celesti-Grapow L, Cilliers S, Clarkson BD, et al. Beta diversity of urban floras among European and non-European cities. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2014;23(7):769–79.

McKinney ML. Measuring floristic homogenization by non-native plants in North America. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2004;13(1):47–53.

Florencio M, Lobo JM, Cardoso P, Almeida-Neto M, Borges PAV. The Colonisation of Exotic Species Does Not Have to Trigger Faunal Homogenisation: Lessons from the Assembly Patterns of Arthropods on Oceanic Islands. Chapman M (Gee) G, editor. PLoS One. 2015;10(5):e0128276 10.1371/journal.pone.0128276 PubMed DOI PMC

Dalmazzone S. Economic factors affecting vulnerability to biological invasions. In: Perrings C, Dalmazzone S, Williamson MH, editors. The Economics of Biological Invasions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing; 2000. p. 17–30.

Irwin MT, Wright PC, Birkinshaw C, Fisher BL, Gardner CJ, Glos J, et al. Patterns of species change in anthropogenically disturbed forests of Madagascar. Biol Conserv. 2010;143(10):2351–62.

Didham RK, Tylianakis JM, Gemmell NJ, Rand TA, Ewers RM. Interactive effects of habitat modification and species invasion on native species decline. Trends Ecol Evol. 2007;22(9):489–96. 10.1016/j.tree.2007.07.001 PubMed DOI

Díaz S, Settele J, Brondízio ES, Ngo HT, Agard J, Arneth A, et al. Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for profound change. Science (80-). 2019;366(6471). PubMed

Gurevitch J, Padilla D. Are invasive species a major cause of extinctions? Trends Ecol Evol. 2004;19(9):470–4. 10.1016/j.tree.2004.07.005 PubMed DOI

McCreless EE, Huff DD, Croll DA, Tershy BR, Spatz DR, Holmes ND, et al. Past and estimated future impact of invasive alien mammals on insular threatened vertebrate populations. Nat Commun. 2016;7(1):12488 10.1038/ncomms12488 PubMed DOI PMC

Global proliferation of nonnative plants is a major driver of insect invasions

The impact of land use on non-native species incidence and number in local assemblages worldwide

Updating the list of flower-visiting bees, hoverflies and wasps in the central atolls of Maldives, with notes on land-use effects

Zobrazit více v PubMed

figshare
10.6084/m9.figshare.13266638.v1