Hitting snooze on sleeper species
O’Uhuru, A. C., Morelli, T. L., Evans, A. E., Salva, J. D., & Bradley, B. A. (2024). Identifying new invasive plants in the face of climate change: a focus on sleeper species. Biological Invasions, 1-13. PDF.
Written by Bethany Bradley, edited by Thomas Nuhfer
Summary
In the Northeast, hundreds of introduced plants have established populations in the wild. Most of these introduced plants are not invasive (those that become abundant, spread, and have negative impacts). However, some established plants are invasive elsewhere and could become invasive in the Northeast as climate conditions change to become more favorable to their population growth and spread. O’Uhuru et al. (2024) analyzed a set of 169 established plants in the Northeast (a subset of all introduced plants). Using impact assessments and evaluating whether future climate corresponds to conditions where the species have been reported as abundant, this analysis highlights a set of 18 high priority ‘sleeper species’ in the Northeast. Existing populations of these species may ‘awaken’ and become invasive with the warmer and wetter climate conditions projected across the Northeast. Treatment and eradication of existing sleeper populations before they become invasive could prevent future invasions.
Take home points
Invasive species are not necessarily invasive throughout their entire introduced range - cold temperatures or insufficient precipitation could be preventing some introduced species from increasing in population size, spreading, and having negative impacts.
With climate change, some introduced species could become invasive - this paper uses risk assessments to narrow down some high priority species that climate change could awaken.
See also our synthesis documents describing sleeper species and highlighting the results of this project
Management implications
From the 169 established-but-not-yet-invasive plants, this analysis identifies 18 high priority sleeper species likely to awaken in New York and New England with climate change, including kudzu, wisteria, arrow bamboo, and Japanese spiraea
Appendix 1 provides separate impact assessments for 169 established-but-not-yet-invasive plants in New York and New England states
Appendix 2 is a single summary spreadsheet of the 169 established-but-not-yet-invasive plants including impacts and potential climate overlap that can be used to identify priority sleeper species.
Related papers
Cunningham et al. 2004, Frank & Just 2020, Spear et al. 2021
Keywords
changing biotic interactions, kudzu, spiraea, wisteria, sleeper species, risk assessment