Extract

Invasive (i.e., nonnative) species are considered the second greatest agent of change to ecosystems after habitat change (Pejchar and Mooney 2009). They can have both direct and indirect effects, resulting in ecosystem impacts defined as substantial impacts to species composition, relative abundances, nutrient pools and fluxes, and disturbance cycles such as terrestrial fire regimes (Simberloff 2011). They can also change contaminant cycling and contaminant residues in top predators (Kwon et al. 2006) while adapting to contaminants (McKenzie et al. 2011). All of these affect ecosystem services.

Invasive species impacts are expected to increase as a result of global climate change. For instance, increased water temperature will alter thermal habitats and the potential range expansion of aquatic species, e.g., northern fish populations may be threatened by range expansions of warm water, southern fish populations (Sharma et al. 2007). Some aquatic habitats, such as alpine lakes, where resident communities would have to disperse northward over vast differences to colonize colder alpine lakes, may see complete replacement of aquatic communities after extinction events (Holzapfel and Vinebrooke 2005).

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