Journal Article
Functional responses can unify invasion ecology
Jaimie T. A. Dick; Mhairi E. Alexander; Anthony Ricciardi; Ciaran Laverty; Paul O. Downey; Meng Xu; Jonathan M. Jeschke; Wolf-Christian Saul; Matthew P. Hill; Ryan Wasserman; Daniel Barrios-O’Neill; Olaf L. F. Weyl; Richard H. Shaw
Biological Invasions · Vol. 19, Issue 5 · pp. 1667-1672 · 2017
Abstract
We contend that invasion ecology requires a universal, measurable trait of species and their interactions with resources that predicts key elements of invasibility and ecological impact; here, we advocate that functional responses can help achieve this across taxonomic and trophic groups, among habitats and contexts, and can hence help unify disparate research interests in invasion ecology.