Abstract
Invasive alien species (IAS) are a major global challenge requiring urgent action, and the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (2011–2020) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) includes a target on the issue. Meeting the target requires an understanding of invasion patterns. However, national or regional analyses of invasions are limited to developed countries. We identified 488 IAS in China’s terrestrial habitats, inland waters and marine ecosystems based on available literature and field work, including 171 animals, 265 plants, 26 fungi, 3 protists, 11 procaryots, and 12 viruses. Terrestrial plants account for 51.6% of the total number of IAS, and terrestrial invertebrates (104 species) for 21.3%. Of the total numbers, 67.9% of plant IAS and 34.8% of animal IAS were introduced intentionally. All other taxa were introduced unintentionally despite very few animal and plant species that invaded naturally. In terms of habitats, 64.3% of IAS occur on farmlands, 13.9% in forests, 8.4% in marine ecosystems, 7.3% in inland waters, and 6.1% in residential areas. Half of all IAS (51.1%) originate from North and South America, 18.3% from Europe, 17.3% from Asia not including China, 7.2% from Africa, 1.8% from Oceania, and the origin of the remaining 4.3% IAS is unknown. The distribution of IAS can be divided into three zones. Most IAS are distributed in coastal provinces and the Yunnan province; provinces in Middle China have fewer IAS, and most provinces in West China have the least number of IAS. Sites where IAS were first detected are mainly distributed in the coastal region, the Yunnan Province and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The number of newly emerged IAS has been increasing since 1850. The cumulative number of firstly detected IAS grew exponentially.
Highlights
Terrestrial plants account for 51.6% of the total number of Invasive alien species (IAS), and terrestrial invertebrates (104 species) for 21.3% (Table 1)
There may be biases in the timing of IAS discovery, as changes in resource allocation over time resulted in increasing opportunities for a more rigorous scientific research
An analysis of alien species in Europe has shown that human activity plays a key role in biological invasions (Pyšek et al 2010, Jeschke and Genovesi 2011) and that the full effects of current socioeconomic patterns on the numbers of alien species can be delayed by several decades, resulting in what has been called an “invasion debt” (Essl et al 2010)
Summary
Invasive alien species (IAS) are considered one of the key pressures on world’s biodiversity (Leprieur et al 2008; Butchart et al 2010; Rands et al 2010), alter ecosystem services and processes (Hulme et al 2009; Vilà et al 2010, 2011), reduce native species abundance and richness (Cohen and Carlton 1998; Blackburn et al 2004; Gaertner et al 2009; Hejda et al 2009), decrease genetic diversity of resident species (Ellstrand and Schierenbeck 2000; Daehler and Carino 2001), and cause substantial economic losses (Pimentel et al 2005; Xu et al 2006a; Kettunen et al 2009) Responding to this threat is urgent (Lambertini et al 2011). We present a comprehensive inventory of IAS in China, and analyze the temporal trends of biological invasions in the country in order to identify priority responses to the growing threat from biological invasions
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