Human-aided admixture may fuel ecosystem transformation during biological invasions: theoretical and experimental evidence.

ABSTRACT: Biological invasions can transform our understanding of how the interplay of historical isolation and contemporary (human-aided) dispersal affects the structure of intraspecific diversity in functional traits, and in turn, how changes in functional traits affect other scales of biological organization such as communities and ecosystems. Because biological invasions frequently involve the admixture of previously isolated lineages as a result of human-aided dispersal, studies of invasive populations can reveal how admixture results in novel genotypes and shifts in functional trait variation within populations. Further, because invasive species can be ecosystem engineers within invaded ecosystems, admixture-induced shifts in the functional traits of invaders can affect the composition of nati

SUBMITTER: Molofsky J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3997308 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature