Blackburn, TM; Dyer, E; Su, S; Cassey, P; (2015) Long after the event, or four things we (should) know about bird invasions. Journal of Ornithology , 156 (1) pp. 15-25. 10.1007/s10336-015-1155-z.

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Abstract

The most significant single event in the study of alien bird invasions occurred in 1981, with the publication of John L. Long’s seminal book “Introduced Birds of the World”. The significance of this book derives not just from its content, but also from its timing, coincident with the 1982 SCOPE programme on the ecology of biological invasions. It was not long before studies started to appear that exploited the data in Long (1981) to address the questions posed by SCOPE regarding alien invasions. As a result, we arguably have a more complete understanding of the invasion process for birds than for any other taxon. Nevertheless, there are still some key issues in the study of bird invasions where understanding is not all it should be. We aim to highlight four of these issues, by arguing that (1) We don’t know half so much about bird invasions as we think, (2) Propagule pressure promotes invasions, (3) Colonization pressure matters, and (4) There is no evidence that escape from parasites promotes alien (bird) invasions. We expect some of the views expressed to be controversial, and others less so, but either way we hope this paper will stimulate others to provide better evidence for or against our propositions.

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