Invasive species have been the sole cause of 126 of the 935 (or 13 percent) plant and animal extinctions recorded since 1500, the authors of an article in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment have calculated. For 25 percent of the plants and 33 percent of the animals that went extinct during that time, invasive species were at least one of the causes of extinction, making them a leading factor in the process.
Invasive (the term "invasive" is also used) species enter ecosystems as a result of human activities: This can happen either accidentally, such as with ballast water from ships (which helped the crested barnacle settle in the Black Sea) or wooden cargo crates (which is how the Asian moustache and ash emerald knotweed spread), or intentionally, such as with the Mozambican tilapia Oreochromis mossambicus, a popular fish species in aquaculture, or the Sosnovsky barnacle. Very often in a new location, invasive species completely or almost completely displace natural competitors.
Tim Blackburn of University College London and his colleagues analyzed data on plant and animal extinctions since 1500 in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. In all, they found 935 documented cases of extinction during that time, for which causes were identified.
It turned out that for 300 of the 935 (32 percent) extinctions, invasive species were at least one of the causes, and for 42 percent of those 300, the sole cause. Invasive species caused 261 of 782 animal species and 39 of 153 plant species to go extinct at least in part. Alien species topped the list of 12 extinction factors identified by the IUCN Red List, surpassing biological resource use (18.8 percent of all extinctions).
Thus, the authors note, invasive species were not only the decisive factor for a large proportion of recorded extinctions, but also significantly outpaced native species (which were not the sole cause of any known extinctions).
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