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Climate change increases risk of plant invasion in the Eastern United States

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Abstract

Invasive plant species threaten native ecosystems, natural resources, and managed lands worldwide. Climate change may increase risk from invasive plant species as favorable climate conditions allow invaders to expand into new ranges. Here, we use bioclimatic envelope modeling to assess current climatic habitat, or lands climatically suitable for invasion, for three of the most dominant and aggressive invasive plants in the southeast United States: kudzu (Pueraria lobata), privet (Ligustrum sinense; L. vulgare), and cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica). We define climatic habitat using both the Maxent and Mahalanobis distance methodologies, and we define the best climatic predictors based on variables that best ‘constrain’ species distributions and variables that ‘release’ the most land area if excluded. We then use an ensemble of 12 atmosphere-ocean general circulation models to project changes in climatic habitat for the three invasive species by 2100. The combined methodologies, predictors, and models produce a robust assessment of invasion risk inclusive of many of the approaches typically used individually to assess climate change impacts. Current invasion risk is widespread in southeastern states for all three species, although cogongrass invasion risk is more restricted to the Gulf Coast. Climate change is likely to enable all three species to greatly expand their ranges. Risk from privet and kudzu expands north into Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England states by 2100. Risk from cogongrass expands as far north as Kentucky and Virginia. Heightened surveillance and prompt eradication of small pockets of invasion in northern states should be a management priority.

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Notes

  1. The following AOGCMs were used in this study: Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling & Analysis (CCCMA) CM3.1, Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques (CNRM) CM3, Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) MK3.5, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) 2.1, Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction (HAD) CM3, Institute for Numerical Mathematics (INM) CM3, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) CM4, Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC) 3.2, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI) ECHAM5, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) CCSM3.0, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) PCM1.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the High Meadows Foundation. Dave Marvin was instrumental in collecting the data upon which this study depends. We thank Lew Ziska, Diane Debinski, Nathan Gregory, and Margarita Ramos for their thoughtful comments. We gratefully acknowledge the modeling groups for providing their data for analysis, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) for collecting and archiving the model output, and the JSC/CLIVAR Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for organizing the model data analysis activity. The IPCC Data Archive is supported by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.

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  1. Bethany A. Bradley

    Present address: Department of Biology, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, 01002, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Bethany A. Bradley, David S. Wilcove & Michael Oppenheimer

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    David S. Wilcove

  3. Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Michael Oppenheimer

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  1. Bethany A. Bradley
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Correspondence to Bethany A. Bradley.

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Bradley, B.A., Wilcove, D.S. & Oppenheimer, M. Climate change increases risk of plant invasion in the Eastern United States. Biol Invasions 12, 1855–1872 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-009-9597-y

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