In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equivalent to the concept of indigenous or autochthonous species. A wild organism (as opposed to a domesticated organism) is known as an introduced species within the regions where it was anthropogenically introduced. If an introduced species causes substantial ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage, it may be regarded more specifically as an invasive species.
The notion of nativity is often a blurred concept, as it is a function of both time and political boundaries. Over long periods of time, local conditions and migratory patterns are constantly changing as tectonic plates move, join, and split. Natural climate change (which is much slower than human-caused climate change) changes sea level, ice cover, temperature, and rainfall, driving direct changes in habitability and indirect changes through the presence of predators, competitors, food sources, and even oxygen levels. Species do naturally appear, reproduce, and endure, or become extinct, and their distribution is rarely static or confined to a particular geographic location. Moreover, the distinction between native and non-native as being tied to a local occurrence during historical times has been criticised as lacking perspective, and a case was made for more graded categorisations such as that of prehistoric natives, which occurred in a region during prehistory but have since suffered local extinction there due to human involvement.
A native species in a location is not necessarily also endemic to that location. Endemic species are exclusively found in a particular place. A native species may occur in areas other than the one under consideration. The terms endemic and native also do not imply that an organism necessarily first originated or evolved where it is currently found.
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The participants will reflect on their own scientific work with respect to other disciplinary methods and discuss possible benefits of interdisciplinary approach in their field. Moreover, students wil
Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration/ecological resilience or effectively permanent (e.g. through land loss).
Species distribution, or species dispersion, is the manner in which a biological taxon is spatially arranged. The geographic limits of a particular taxon's distribution is its range, often represented as shaded areas on a map. Patterns of distribution change depending on the scale at which they are viewed, from the arrangement of individuals within a small family unit, to patterns within a population, or the distribution of the entire species as a whole (range).
Pioneer species are hardy species that are the first to colonize barren environments or previously biodiverse steady-state ecosystems that have been disrupted, such as by wildfire. Some lichens grow on rocks without soil, so may be among the first of life forms, and break down the rocks into soil for plants. Since some uninhabited land may have thin, poor quality soils with few nutrients, pioneer species are often hardy plants with adaptations such as long roots, root nodes containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and leaves that employ transpiration.
North of La Rochelle, the Baie de l'Aiguillon bears witness to a structurally invasive past, partially camouflaged in its shallow waters. 400 hectares of abandoned oyster beds locally known as crassats, remnants of the shellfish industry, lie in the intert ...
2023
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Species distribution modeling is a highly versatile tool for understanding the intricate relationship between environmental conditions and species occurrences. However, the available data often lacks information on confirmed species absence and is limited ...
2024
In total, 28 of the 29 fish species reported from the Lake Kivu basin occur in the littoral zone of the lake, but information about their structure, occurrence, and the habitats affecting their distribution is largely lacking. The lake's inshore area is po ...