Parasites can structure biological communities directly through population regulation and indirectly by processes such as apparent competition. However, the role of parasites in the process of biological invasion is less well understood and mechanisms of parasite mediation of predation among hosts are unclear. Mutual predation between native and invading species is an important factor in determ...

The invasion of an established community by new species can trigger changes in community structure. Invasions often occur in phytophagous insect communities, the dynamics of which are driven by the structure of the host assemblage and the presence of competitors. In this study, we investigated how a community established through successive invasions changed over time, taking the last invasion a...

Research on biological invasions has increased rapidly over the past 30 years, generating numerous explanations of how species become invasive. While the mechanisms of invasive species establishment are well studied, the mechanisms driving abundance patterns (i.e. patterns of population density) remain poorly understood. Invasive species typically have higher abundances in their new environment...

Background Alien or non-indigenous species are now considered a major element of global environmental change (Vitousek et al. 1996; Mack et al. 2000). Invasive species pose a significant threat to many ecosystems worldwide by their direct and indirect impacts to native species and by their effects on broader scale ecological patterns and processes (Cole and Landres 1996). Biological invasions h...

Biological invasions are recognised to be a problem of growing severity. Human pathogens, weeds or pests in terrestrial systems and dominant alien species in freshwater or marine aquatic systems all impose significant costs in terms of forgone output or costs of control in every major system. Like many of the other environmental consequences of globalisation, biological invasions require that d...

Biological invasions are recognised to be a problem of growing severity. Encompassing new human pathogens, weeds or pests in terrestrial systems, and dominant alien species in freshwater or marine aquatic systems, they are the second most important proximate cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. They also impose significant costs in terms of forgone output or costs of control in every major sys...

Invasions by non-indigenous species (NIS) are recognized as important stressors of many communities throughout the world. Here, we evaluated available data on the role of NIS in marine and estuarine communities and their interactions with other anthropogenic stressors, using an intensive analysis of the Chesapeake Bay region as a case study. First, we reviewed the reported ecological impacts of...

We consider the problem of management of an aquatic invader spreading in a lake system. We assume that each year the invader can be removed from a certain proportion of invaded lakes, which depends on the selected intensity of control. Control decisions are generated and compared for an optimally controlled system and for a static optimization across asymptotic steady states. Control close to e...

Understanding and predicting the outcomes of biological invasions is challenging where multiple invader and native species interact. We hypothesize that antagonistic interactions between invaders and natives could divert their impact on subsequent invasive species, thus facilitating coexistence. From field data, we found that, when existing together in freshwater sites, the native amphipod Gamm...