Literature Review: Alien Invasive Species

Literature review

Alien invasive species

In today’s world, many areas have become urbanized and natural areas have become fragmented due to human interference (Alston and Richardson 2006). This in turn has caused many interfaces between the urbanized world and the natural landscape (Alston and Richardson 2006) which most of the time have negative impacts on the natural environments (Alston and Richardson 2006) such as pollution and invasion of exotic species.

A species has to pass a few criteria before it can be considered an alien invasive species, not just for the reasoning that the species was not originally from that area (Richardson et al. 2000). A species is considered to be an exotic species once it has been brought into an area that it was not established in previously by humans, either by accident or intentionally (Richardson et al. 2000, and Alston and Richardson 2006). Once a species has been brought into a new area, it is only if that species can create a large number of offspring that can survive far away from the parents whether humans try to interfere or not can it be considered to be an alien invasive species (Richardson et al. 2000).

Contributing factors for seed dispersal

Invasive plants that can use birds as their main form of dispersal are the species that can quickly become problematic (Gosper et al. 2005). Invasive plants make

2005). Invasive plant species that are able to produce fruit when indigenous plant species are either not fruiting or have a limit of fruit available are able to attract more bird species (Gosper et al. 2005). This leads to more bird species eating greater quantities of the invasive plant’s fruit, thus increasing the dispersal at a rapid pace (Gosper et al. 2005). The fruit availability from invasive plants is also increased if the species is used by humans for cultivation (Gosper et al.