Using species distribution models to assess the relationship between species traits and invasiveness in New Zealand

Abstract

What attributes make species more or less invasive?. This basic question has oriented most of invasion ecology research and a set of diverse attributes have been proposed as predictors. Species distribution models (SDMs) are useful to estimate invasiveness, given that they provide potential distribution in invaded ranges as a proxy of invasive success. We studied 69 exotic species occurring in New Zealand to assess the relationship between 8 functional attributes and invasiveness occupying as response variables: potential area predicted by NZ model, rate of invasion and the proportion of stable populations (assessed as the intersection between global and NZ distribution model. Results indicate that seed size, the number of biome that species occur and relatedness between species resulted the best predictor for potential area, and invasion rate. No attributes were related with the proportion of stable populations. The importance of relatedness suggest that there are phylogenetic lineages more or less sensitive to these attributes; we reinforce the general idea that seed size and niche breadth are one of the best predictors of invasiveness.