Media release

From: Springer Nature

Ecology: Extreme weather events may help invasive species

Extreme weather events may provide non-native species with advantages over their native counterparts, suggests a meta-analysis published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Invasive plants and animals pose problems to native wildlife and ecosystems around the world. Extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves and cold spells, are increasing in frequency and severity as a result of climate change and surviving them is challenging for plants and animals.

Xuan Liu and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 443 studies that assess the responses of 1,852 native and 187 non-native animal species from terrestrial, marine and freshwater habitats to extreme weather events. They found that, overall, responses to extreme weather events were more often negative among native than non-native animal populations, but that responses differed depending on the type of weather event and the type of habitat. They suggest that both non-native and native marine animals overall are insensitive to extreme weather events, although native molluscs, corals and anemones are negatively affected by heatwaves. Non-native terrestrial and freshwater animals were only affected by heatwaves and storms, respectively, while native animals in terrestrial ecosystems respond negatively to heatwaves, cold spells and droughts, and in freshwater habitats are vulnerable to most events apart from cold spells.

The authors also examined hotspots of extreme weather events and existing locations of non-native species to identify locations including Northern America, Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, southwest Australia and New Zealand, and North Atlantic Ocean, where native species may be particularly vulnerable to their joint effects.