Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

Invasive or exotic?

Posted by Anekeia on 09 Sep 2011 at 20:03 GMT

Invasive species
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0024299#article1.body1.sec1.p1

There is an ongoing debate about whether and how well ecologists differentiate between 'exotic' (alien, non-indigenous, etc) species and 'invasive' ones (defined any of several ways, but almost always as a subset of 'alien'). Given the title and first sentence of this article, these authors have either ignored the distinction or denied that it exists.

No competing interests declared.

RE: Invasive or exotic?

Liyiming replied to Anekeia on 22 Sep 2011 at 06:46 GMT

We did not deny the distinction between invasive species and the others that are not invasive, both of which are subsets of 'exotic' or 'alien' or 'non-indugenous' species. We preferred the definition of invasive species as those having harmful environmental impacts on native species ( see Ricciardi and Cohen 2007, Biological Invasions 9:307-315 for review). As we did not compare the preference of the native snake for an invasive species and the other exotic species that are not invasive, the title in this study may be more suitable.

No competing interests declared.