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Biological homogenization is the dominant process shaping the future global biosphere. As global transportation becomes faster and more frequent, it is inevitable that biotic intermixing will increase. Unique local biotas will become extinct only to be replaced by already widespread biotas that can tolerate human activities. This process is affecting all aspects of our world: language, economies, and ecosystems alike. The ultimate outcome is the loss of uniqueness and the growth of uniformity. In this way, fast food restaurants exist in Moscow and Java Sparrows breed on Hawaii. Biological homogenization qualifies as a global environmental catastrophe. The Earth has never witnessed such a broad and complete reorganization of species distributions

"Ecology in a Changing World teaches students to think like ecologists by building their quantitative skills and helping them make connections between research data and real-world phenomena. A thorough exploration of ecology in the Anthropocene gives students an updated and relevant approach to the discipline, showing them how ecology matters. An integrated media package creates a seamless learning pathway for students, providing simulations, activities involving real research-based case studies, and easy-to-assign quantitative skills building assessments"--

It has been previously suggested that the characteristics that are driving the taxonomic homogenisation of the global avifauna, through the extinction of native bird species and the establishment of exotic bird species, are opposite sides of the same coin. One of the most important tools that conservation biologists and wildlife managers have to ameliorate the extinction of a species is to reintroduce populations to stronghold areas from which they have been extirpated or were not previously common. In this paper, we address the question of what the study of exotic bird introductions can tell us to inform the translocation of native species. We review the relative importance of the five factors that have been suggested significantly to influence the successful establishment of non-native species: introduction effort, environmental matching, species' interactions, species' life histories, and phylogenetic relatedness. Current evidence suggests that introduction effort will be an important determinant of release, but how many individuals need to be released, and in how many separate release events, is contingent on characteristics of species and environment. The importance of climate matching for introduction success suggests that the success of translocations will depend greatly on the study and amelioration of the problem that caused the initial population decline. This is most problematic in situations where the decline is associated with human-induced climate change. Migratory and sexually selected species may be harder to re-establish, but related species may differ substantially in their likelihood of success. We suggest that further insights into the reintroduction process may be gained particularly by studying species that are experiencing a threat in their native range but which are also being widely released as exotics outside of this range.

Unprecedented rates of introduction and spread of non-native species pose burgeoning challenges to biodiversity, natural resource management, regional economies, and human health. Current biosecurity efforts are failing to keep pace with globalization, revealing critical gaps in our understanding and response to invasions. Here, we identify four priority areas to advance invasion science in the face of rapid global environmental change. First, invasion science should strive to develop a more comprehensive framework for predicting how the behavior, abundance, and interspecific interactions of non-native species vary in relation to conditions in receiving environments and how these factors govern the ecological impacts of invasion. A second priority is to understand the potential synergistic effects of multiple co-occurring stressors— particularly involving climate change—on the establishment and impact of non-native species. Climate adaptation and mitigation strategies will need to consider the possible consequences of promoting non-native species, and appropriate management responses to non-native species will need to be developed. The third priority is to address the taxonomic impediment. The ability to detect and evaluate invasion risks is compromised by a growing deficit in taxonomic expertise, which cannot be adequately compensated by new molecular technologies alone. Management of biosecurity risks will become increasingly challenging unless academia, industry, and governments train and employ new personnel in taxonomy and systematics. Fourth, we recommend that internationally cooperative biosecurity strategies consider the bridgehead effects of global dispersal networks, in which organisms tend to invade new regions from locations where they have already established. Cooperation among countries to eradicate or control species established in bridgehead regions should yield greater benefit than independent attempts by individual countries to exclude these species from arriving and establishing.