It may no longer make economic or environmental sense to pursue forestry endeavours using conifers in the Western Cape. If local plantations are to be maintained, invasive pine trees will continue to spread, the Cape’s water supply will continue to dwindle and the unique natural diversity of the fynbos region will be changed forever.
Antarctica is regarded as one of the most pristine environments on Earth. There is, however, a growing concern that the icy continent is being threatened by alien species that are accidentally being brought to the continent in the luggage of tourists and scientists.
Much remains to be understood about why some introduced species become invasive whereas others do not. Recently, polyploidy (whole genome duplication) has been proposed as an important determinant of invasiveness in plants.
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.
