Research biases create overrepresented “poster children” of marine invasion ecology

Abstract

Nonnative marine species are increasingly recognized as a threat to the world's oceans, yet are poorly understood relative to their terrestrial and freshwater counterparts. Here, we conducted a systematic review of 2,203 research articles on nonnative marine animals to determine whether the current literature reflects the known diversity of marine invaders, how much we know about these species, and how frequently their impacts are measured. We found that only 39% of nonnative animals listed in the World Register of Introduced Marine Species appeared in the peer-reviewed English literature. Of those, fewer than half were the subject of more than one study. There is currently little focus on the consequences of marine introductions: only 9.9% of studies quantified the impact of nonnative species. Finally, our knowledge of nonnative marine species is heavily limited by strong taxonomic biases consistent across all phyla, resulting in one or two disproportionately well-studied representatives for each phylum, which we refer to as the "poster children" of invasion. These gaps in the literature make it difficult to effectively triage the most detrimental invasive species for management and illustrate the challenges in achieving the global biodiversity goals of preventing and managing the introduction and establishment of invasive species. K E Y W O R D Sbiological invasions, biotic introductions, introduced marine animals, invasion ecology, systematic review, taxonomic bias INTRODUCTIONMarine species have been transported and introduced to areas beyond their native ranges in virtually all parts of the coastal ocean (Molnar et al., 2008;Rilov & Crooks, 2009). Many translocated species appear to have no impact on native communities and ecosystems (e.g., Anton et al., 2019). Some are truly benign, while for others, an appar-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

WITHDRAWN: The Ecological Biases of Zooplankton Invasions: Taxonomic, Geographical And Methodological Perspectives

“…Even if the information about the potential impact of the species presented in the studies is consistent, the biases are clear and cannot be disregarded; we emphasize that these two facets are linked (Lowry et al 2013). Records of impacts seen in other reviews are also supported by just a few taxa (see Watkins et al 2021). The consistency of this pattern makes it safe to say that research efforts are mistakenly and unevenly concentrated, probably because of the high level of impact identi ed for these species and the consequent advance and intensi cation of studies involving them (Lowry et al 2013;Pyšek et al 2020).…”

“…Despite the clear implications that invasive species have for native populations, the biases cannot be ignored. These are not unique to non-native zooplankton (Lowry et al 2013) or inland water communities (Watkins et al 2021), or of general studies on non-native zooplankton (Dexter and Bollens 2020) and should not be related to invasion ecology, since some of the factors responsible for this result are linked to scienti c cultural basis. Greater research efforts are needed in understudied species, as well as better communication between researchers, avoiding uncertainties and replications.…”

“…There is clearly a taxonomic bias in the literature on non-native zooplanktonic species, as well as for other groups; the literature produced contains several gaps, generated by unequal efforts in speci c areas (Lowry et al 2013). This bias is primarily in uenced by the excessive study of the most popular species, or the most "famous" or with positive feeding cycles, simply because they are studied more initially, generating "poster children" species (Watkins et al 2021). This was already predictable, since these species are related to anthropic environments and are frequently associated with ecological impacts (Dexter and Bollens 2020).…”

“…Over the years, many investigations have been carried out with zooplankton as a result of environmental problems related to this group and the increase in the invasion rates of these animals (Dexter and Bollens 2020). Reviews are also able to nd evidence of biases in the literature about non-native species (Watkins et al 2021) and the economic losses associated with them (Diagne et al 2021). Indeed, research efforts recorded in the literature on non-native species are unbalanced and contain several methodological gaps, and ignore some areas and aspects of biological invasions (Lowry et al 2013).…”

Lessons From the Western Atlantic Lionfish Invasion to Inform Management in the Mediterranean

“…This study aims to help inform lionfish management in regions where the species recently invaded or are expected to invade. Given the longer invasion, much of the current biological and ecological knowledge of lionfish comes from research in the Western Atlantic (Fishelson, 1975;Darling et al, 2011;Cure et al, 2012;Kulbicki et al, 2012;Pusack et al, 2016;Savva et al, 2020;Watkins et al, 2021). We synthesize key lessons learned from the Western Atlantic for the management approaches that were successful-or failed-to help control lionfish.…”