Protected areas are a crucial part of global biodiversity conservation strategies. However, the ecological integrity of most protected areas is currently under threat from biological invasions which are a major direct driver of biodiversity loss, changes in ecosystem services and biotic homogenization.
Because of the numerous threats posed by invasive species to natural ecosystems, a major goal of invasion biology is to understand the factors explaining the distribution of species worldwide. Despite the many efforts at local and regional scales to predict areas vulnerable to invasion, the relative roles of biotic and abiotic conditions on the global distribution of species are still rather poorly understood.
The influence of human activities on biodiversity is extensive and worldwide. In fact, there may not be any untouched region as the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and occurrences of biological invasions are ubiquitous across biomes.
It’s an old idea that plants that are specialised for particular pollinators should become invasive less often than those which can be pollinated by a broad range of animal species. Most plant species will not encounter their original pollinators when introduced elsewhere so to reproduce in their novel range they will have to recruit novel pollinators.
Invasive alien trees pose a very significant threat indeed to freshwater invertebrates, especially endemic species, in the biodiversity hotspot of the Cape Floristic Region. Among these invertebrates are dragonflies, which are highly sensitive to changes in habitat, especially the adverse effects of alien invasive trees.
