Invasive Hotspots of India

Identifying areas vulnerable to invasive alien species (IAS) is a prerequisite to controlling invasion.  This study combines bioclimatic data with GBIF-mediated occurrences to model climatic niches for 155 invasive alien plants in India. After using the models to generate climatic suitability maps, the researchers overlaid terrestrial ecoregions and anthropogenic biomes. The resulting ‘IAS hotspots’ represent places where more than 50 per cent of an ecoregion overlaps with climatically suitable areas for multiple invasive species containing at least three anthropogenic biome types. These hotspots occur in 19 of 47 Indian ecoregions and coincide with major biodiversity hotspots such as Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, and Eastern Himalaya along with other forest reserves, islands, and coastal mangrove forests.