Using species introductions to gain insight about key biological processes

入侵物种有可能造成重大的生态危害，政府每年要花费数十亿美元来管理它们。此外，预计全球气候变化将促使潜在有害的入侵物种向北迁移;加拿大预计将成为此类物种的净接收国。然而，我们目前阻碍了我们的能力，以预测本地和农业生态系统物种入侵的进化和生态反应，因为在这方面的理论和实证工作普遍缺乏。物种引进，我们有知识和控制的时间和位置的释放提出了一个强大的系统，在其中测试的物种组成和相互作用的作用，在其进化和生态过程的社会问题。生物控制计划的目标是利用天敌进行入侵物种管理，这是一个有吸引力的工具，因为它们可以用来代替潜在的有害化学品。然而，将新物种引入现有生态系统并非没有风险。在加拿大和美国，引入和迁移的入侵植物物种紫色金钱草和它的生物控制剂，食草甲虫，提供了一个令人信服的系统，探索周围的生态和进化的土著社区物种入侵的反应的问题。在这里，我概述了一个研究计划，将检查是否有一个适应性的框架，使我们能够提高我们的能力，使物种引进对本地植物群落的长期和短期影响的预测。所获得的知识将有助于发现科学的一个关键领域，并有助于改善入侵物种管理政策。

Invasive species have the potential to do major ecological harm, and their management costs governments billions of dollars annually. Moreover, global climate change is predicted to promote the northward migration of potentially harmful invasive species; Canada is expected to be a net recipient of such species. And yet, we are currently hampered in our ability to predict the evolutionary and ecological response of native and agricultural ecosystems to species invasions because of a general lack of theoretical and empirical work in this area. Species introductions for which we have knowledge and control over the timing and location of release present a powerful system in which to test questions about the role of the species composition and interactions in a community on its evolutionary and ecological processes. Biological control programs, the goal of which is take advantage of natural enemies for invasive species management, are an appealing tool because they may be used in the place of potentially harmful chemicals. However, the introduction of a new species into an existing ecosystem is not without risks. The introduction and migration of the invasive plant species purple loosestrife and its biocontrol agent, a herbivorous beetle, in Canada and the United States, offers a compelling system in which to explore the questions surrounding the ecological and evolutionary response of native communities to species invasions. Here I outline a research program that will examine whether an adaptive framework allows us to improve our ability to make predictions about the long and short term impacts of species introductions on native plant communities. The knowledge gained will both contribute to a key area of discovery science and to the improvement of policy on invasive species management.