Evol Ecol Res 5: 1011-1021 (2003)     Full PDF if your library subscribes.

A comparative analysis of the relative success of introduced land birds on islands

Phillip Cassey*

Laboratoire d’Ecologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 46 rue d’Ulm, 75230 Paris cedex 05, France


e-mail: cassey@biologie.ens.fr

ABSTRACT

It has been suggested that more species have been successfully introduced to oceanic islands than to mainland regions. This suggestion has attracted considerable ecological interest and several theoretical mechanisms have been proposed. However, few data are available to test the hypotheses directly, and the pattern may simply result from many more species being transported to islands rather than mainland regions. Here I test this idea using data for global land birds and present evidence that introductions to islands have a higher probability of success than those to mainland regions. This difference between island and mainland landforms is not consistent among either taxonomic families or biogeographic regions. Instead, introduction attempts within the same biogeographic region have been significantly more successful than those that have occurred between two different biogeographic regions. Subsequently, the proportion of introduction attempts that have occurred within a single biogeographic region is thus a significant predictor of the observed variability in introduction success. I also show that the correlates of successful island introductions are probably different to those of successful mainland introductions.

Keywords: biogeographic regions, introduction success, islands, land birds, mainland continents.

DOWNLOAD A FREE, FULL PDF COPY
IF you are connected using the IP of a subscribing institution (library, laboratory, etc.)
or through its VPN.

 

        © 2003 Phillip Cassey. All EER articles are copyrighted by their authors. All authors endorse, permit and license Evolutionary Ecology Ltd. to grant its subscribing institutions/libraries the copying privileges specified below without additional consideration or payment to them or to Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. These endorsements, in writing, are on file in the office of Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. Consult authors for permission to use any portion of their work in derivative works, compilations or to distribute their work in any commercial manner.

       Subscribing institutions/libraries may grant individuals the privilege of making a single copy of an EER article for non-commercial educational or non-commercial research purposes. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also use articles for non-commercial educational purposes by making any number of copies for course packs or course reserve collections. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also loan single copies of articles to non-commercial libraries for educational purposes.

       All copies of abstracts and articles must preserve their copyright notice without modification.