El Indiferente - Villa de La Orotava

54
INtERACCIoNEs
MutuALIstAs
EN ECosIstEMAs INsuLAREs
integración e impacto de las especies invasoras
El Indiferente | 21 MARZO 2011 MARZO 2011 21 | El Indiferente
Benigno Padrón
Mutualistic interactions on island ecosystems. Integration and impact of alien
species. Biological invasions are an important aspect of global change. In a
world undergoing rapid transformation, there is a great need for answers to
questions such as how exotic species are integrated in and impact on native
ecosystems. This knowledge may be highly useful in the future, when we are
faced with more important decisions. The ecology of interactions, particularly
applying community level approaches, is proving to be an important tool to
provide us with some of these answers. This article is an overview of how
the problem of plant invasions can be assessed through the use of complex
networks, the way alien species form part of the native communities and
their possible impacts on the interaction patterns that evolved long ago
in these particular systems. This type of studies aids in the design and
performance of new experiments to evaluate specific hypotheses, leading
to interesting applications of such methodologies, particularly in terms of
conservation biology. For example, pollen transfer processes between alien
and native species. The focus here is on island ecosystems, due to their
intrinsic characteristics, although some data about continental systems is
included, mainly for comparative purposes or to apply the same methodology
to more general scenarios, not limited to islands.
55