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Invasive species can reach high abundances and dominate native environments. One of the most impressive examples of ecological invasions is the spread of the African subspecies of the honey bee throughout the Americas, starting from its introduction in a single locality in Brazil. The invasive honey bee is expected to more negatively impact bee community abundance and diversity than native dominant species, but this has not been tested previously. We developed a comprehensive and systematic bee sampling scheme, using a protocol deploying 11,520 pan traps across regions and crops for three years in Brazil. We found that invasive honey bees are now the single most dominant bee species. Such dominance has not only negative consequences for abundance and species richness of native bees but also for overall bee abundance (i.e., strong "numerical" effects of honey bees). Contrary to expectations, honey bees did not have stronger negative impacts than other native bees achieving similar levels of dominance (i.e., lack of negative "identity" effects of honey bees). These effects were markedly consistent across crop species, seasons and years, and were independent from land-use effects. Dominance could be a proxy of bee community degradation and more generally of the severity of ecological invasions., (© 2021 by the Ecological Society of America.)

Two main mechanisms may buffer ecosystem functions despite biodiversity loss. First, multiple species could share similar ecological roles, thus providing functional redundancy. Second, species may respond differently to environmental change (response diversity). However, ecosystem function would be best protected when functionally redundant species also show response diversity. This linkage has not been studied directly, so we investigated whether native and exotic pollinator species with similar traits (functional redundancy) differed in abundance (response diversity) across an agricultural intensification gradient. Exotic pollinator species contributed most positive responses, which partially stabilized overall abundance of the pollinator community. However, although some functionally redundant species exhibited response diversity, this was not consistent across functional groups and aggregate abundances within each functional group were rarely stabilized. This shows functional redundancy and response diversity do not always operate in concert. Hence, despite exotic species becoming increasingly dominant in human-modified systems, they cannot replace the functional composition of native species., (© 2017 The Author(s).)

Compartmentalization-the organization of ecological interaction networks into subsets of species that do not interact with other subsets (true compartments) or interact more frequently among themselves than with other species (modules)-has been identified as a key property for the functioning, stability and evolution of ecological communities. Invasions by entomophilous invasive plants may profoundly alter the way interaction networks are compartmentalized. We analysed a comprehensive dataset of 40 paired plant-pollinator networks (invaded versus uninvaded) to test this hypothesis. We show that invasive plants have higher generalization levels with respect to their pollinators than natives. The consequences for network topology are that-rather than displacing native species from the network-plant invaders attracting pollinators into invaded modules tend to play new important topological roles (i.e. network hubs, module hubs and connectors) and cause role shifts in native species, creating larger modules that are more connected among each other. While the number of true compartments was lower in invaded compared with uninvaded networks, the effect of invasion on modularity was contingent on the study system. Interestingly, the generalization level of the invasive plants partially explains this pattern, with more generalized invaders contributing to a lower modularity. Our findings indicate that the altered interaction structure of invaded networks makes them more robust against simulated random secondary species extinctions, but more vulnerable when the typically highly connected invasive plants go extinct first. The consequences and pathways by which biological invasions alter the interaction structure of plant-pollinator communities highlighted in this study may have important dynamical and functional implications, for example, by influencing multi-species reciprocal selection regimes and coevolutionary processes., (© 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.)

Despite considerable current interest in biological invasions, the common life-history characteristics of successful invaders remain elusive. The widely held hypothesis that successful invaders have high reproductive rates has received little empirical support; however, alternative possibilities are seldom considered. Combining a global comparative analysis of avian introductions (>2700 events) with demographic models and phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that although rapid population growth may be advantageous during invasions under certain circumstances, more generally successful invaders are characterized by life-history strategies in which they give priority to future rather than current reproduction. High future breeding expectations reduce the costs of reproductive failure under uncertain conditions and increase opportunities to explore the environment and respond to novel ecological pressures.

Why can alien species succeed in environments to which they have had no opportunity to adapt and even become more abundant than many native species? Ecological theory suggests two main possible answers for this paradox: competitive superiority of exotic species over native species and opportunistic use of ecological opportunities derived from human activities. We tested these hypotheses in birds combining field observations and experiments along gradients of urbanization in New South Wales (Australia). Five exotic species attained densities in the study area comparable to those of the most abundant native species, and hence provided a case for the invasion paradox. The success of these alien birds was not primarily associated with a competitive superiority over native species: the most successful invaders were smaller and less aggressive than their main native competitors, and were generally excluded from artificially created food patches where competition was high. More importantly, exotic birds were primarily restricted to urban environments, where the diversity and abundance of native species were low. This finding agrees with previous studies and indicates that exotic and native species rarely interact in nature. Observations and experiments in the field revealed that the few native species that exploit the most urbanized environments tended to be opportunistic foragers, adaptations that should facilitate survival in places where disturbances by humans are frequent and natural vegetation has been replaced by man-made structures. Successful invaders also shared these features, suggesting that their success is not a paradox but can be explained by their capacity to exploit ecological opportunities that most native species rarely use.

For an animal invading a novel region, the ability to develop new behaviors should facilitate the use of novel food resources and hence increase its survival in the new environment. However, the need to explore new resources may entail costs such as exposing the animal to unfamiliar predators. These two opposing forces result in an exploration-avoidance conflict, which can be expected to interfere with the acquisition of new resources. However, its consequences should be less dramatic in highly urbanized environments where new food opportunities are common and predation risk is low. We tested this hypothesis experimentally by presenting three foraging tasks to introduced common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) from environments with low and high urbanization levels from Australia. Individuals from the highly urbanized environments, where mynas are both more opportunistic when foraging and less fearful to predators, resolved a technical task faster than those from less urbanized environments. These differences did not reflect innovative 'personalities' and were not confounded by sex, morphology or motivational state. Rather, the principal factors underlying differences in mynas' problem-solving ability were neophobic-neophilic responses, which varied across habitats. Thus, mynas seem to modulate their problem-solving ability according to the benefits and costs of innovating in their particular habitat, which may help us understand the great success of the species in highly urbanized environments.