From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.
In the July 2017 issue of Ecology and Evolution, Julissa Rojas-Sandoval, Pedro Acevedo and colleagues analyze the distribution and spread of invasive species across nine islands in the West Indies, and found that anthropogenic disturbance and economic development seem to be the major drivers facilitating the spread and predominance of invasive species over native species. They found a total of 516 alien plant species are invasive on at least one of the nine islands, with between 24 to 306 invasive species per island. The most widely distributed alien plant species is Leucaena leucocephala (Fabaceae), occurring on all nine of the examined islands.
Their database of invasive species compiled by published literature covered the islands of Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, St. Martin, and Trinidad and Tobago. Cuba has the highest number of invasive species, and St. Martin has the highest density of invasive species. They found low similarity in invasive species diversity between islands. The largest fraction of invasive species come from Asia, followed by continental America and Africa. They found that 75 percent of all invasive plants are species that have escaped from cultivation, most commonly due to ornamental use.
Island area and economic development are strong drivers of invasive species diversity. Their data suggests that gross domestic product per capita and the kilometers of paved roadways are favoring the establishment of invaders of native species. The authors suggest that their dataset can be used as a blacklist of unwanted species to help manage the spread of invasive plant species among the islands of the West Indies.
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