Abstract

Accounting for climate change in invasive species risk assessments improves our understanding of potential future impacts and enhances our preparedness for the arrival of new non-native species. We combined traditional risk assessment for invasive species with habitat suitability modeling to assess risk to biodiversity based on climate change. We demonstrate our method by assessing the risk for 15 potentially new invasive plant species to Alberta, Canada, an area where climate change is expected to facilitate the poleward expansion of invasive species ranges. Of the 15 species assessed, the three terrestrial invasive plant species that could pose the greatest threat to Alberta’s biodiversity are giant knotweed (Fallopia sachalinensis), tamarisk (Tamarix chinensis), and alkali swainsonpea (Sphaerophysa salsula). We characterise giant knotweed as ‘extremely invasive’, with 21 times the suitable habitat between baseline and future projected climate. Tamarisk is ‘extremely invasive’ with a 64% increase in suitable habitat, and alkali swainsonpea is ‘highly invasive’ with a 21% increase in suitable habitat. Our methodology can be used to predict and prioritise potentially new invasive species for their impact on biodiversity in the context of climate change.

Highlights

  • Climate change is likely to favour invasive species through increased disturbance events, more hospitable climates for invasive species to become established and decreased resistance of native communities to invasion [1,2,3,4,5]

  • We describe a method for invasive species prioritisation that combines habitat suitability modeling under climate change with risk assessment to biodiversity that can be applied to different jurisdictions

  • We demonstrate the method for a high latitude region of North America, the province of Alberta, Canada where climate change may facilitate the northward expansion of invasive species ranges from further south [20,21,22]

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Summary

Introduction

Climate change is likely to favour invasive species through increased disturbance events (such as fire, flood, storms and drought), more hospitable climates for invasive species to become established and decreased resistance of native communities to invasion [1,2,3,4,5]. Traits of invasive plant species are more likely to benefit from climate change than traits of native species [6,7]. These traits include short generation time, good dispersal ability, broad environmental tolerance and rapid growth [7]. Some native plant communities will likely receive numerous non-native species due to climate change, and while some non-natives will exert relatively.

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