Most invasive species largely conserve their climatic niche

Abstract

The ecological niche is a key concept for elucidating patterns of species distributions and developing strategies for conserving biodiversity. However, recent times are seeing a widespread debate whether species niches are conserved across space and time (niche conservatism hypothesis). Biological invasions represent a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis in a short time frame at the global scale. We synthesized empirical findings for 434 invasive species from 86 studies to assess whether invasive species conserve their climatic niche between native and introduced ranges. Although the niche conservatism hypothesis was rejected in most studies, highly contrasting conclusions for the same species between and within studies suggest that the dichotomous conclusions of these studies were sensitive to techniques, assessment criteria, or author preferences. We performed a consistent quantitative analysis of the dynamics between native and introduced climatic niches reported by previous studies. Our results show there is very limited niche expansion between native and introduced ranges, and introduced niches occupy a position similar to native niches in the environmental space. These findings support the niche conservatism hypothesis overall. In particular, introduced niches were narrower for terrestrial animals, species introduced more recently, or species with more native occurrences. Niche similarity was lower for aquatic species, species introduced only intentionally or more recently, or species with fewer introduced occurrences. Climatic niche conservatism for invasive species not only increases our confidence in transferring ecological niche models to new ranges but also supports the use of niche models for forecasting species responses to changing climates.

The evolution of thermal performance in native and invasive populations of Mimulus guttatus

“…S3), are consistent with the study modeling climatic niches. These results are consistent with a recent meta-analysis showing niche conservatism between the native and introduced ranges of many invasive species (Liu, Wolter, Xian, & Jeschke, 2020). Although the climatic niche in the introduced range is not currently as wide as that of the native range, invasive M. guttatus populations seem poised to occupy a greater climatic niche space should it become available.…”

Rapid Evolution of Invasive Weeds Under Climate Change: Present Evidence and Future Research Needs

“…It has been frequently shown that invasive species may evolve new climatic tolerance ranges in their invasive ranges by comparison to their native ranges, although this is not universally true, and in fact a recent analysis of 86 studies examining 434 invasive species concluded the invasive niches are largely conserved (Liu et al, 2020b). Still, the exceptional cases are critical species to monitor.…”

Increased acclimation ability accompanies a thermal niche shift of a recent invasion

“…Yet, established invasive species are thought to conserve their niche in general, although studies assessing these climatic niche shifts have predominantly focused on plants (Guisan et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2020a; Petitpierre et al., 2012). Terrestrial ectotherms may have a higher capacity for colonization of new climates compared to endotherms (Liu et al., 2020a).…”

“…Yet, established invasive species are thought to conserve their niche in general, although studies assessing these climatic niche shifts have predominantly focused on plants (Guisan et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2020a; Petitpierre et al., 2012). Terrestrial ectotherms may have a higher capacity for colonization of new climates compared to endotherms (Liu et al., 2020a). Additionally, climatic niche shifts have been considered common in invasive insects (Bates et al., 2020; Hill et al., 2017), but studies report niche conservatism in key invasive insect species (Cunze et al., 2018; Roura‐Pascual et al., 2006).…”