INVASIBILITY AND SPECIES RICHNESS OF A COMMUNITY: A NEUTRAL MODEL AND A SURVEY OF PUBLISHED DATA

A widespread but controversial idea in ecology states that the number of invaders of a species assemblage depends on its species richness. Both negative and positive relationships have been reported. We examined whether a simple neutral model where assemblages are generated by drawing individuals from two pools of identical species (native and alien) can predict this relationship. We performed a meta-analysis of published data on this relationship. The neutral model showed that in communities with low and fixed numbers of individuals, the relationship between the number of aliens and native species is strong and negative. This becomes weaker as the proportion of species from both pools already present in the community increases. The relationship between alien and native species richness becomes positive when the number of individuals is allowed to vary, because the richness depends on number of individuals and/or area sampled. The meta-analysis showed that scale-dependence of the relationship between alien and native species richness is universal and compatible with the neutral model. Unless more evidence is available to refute it, the relationship between native and alien species richness should be considered a result of a neutral processes due to constraints on the number of individuals in the community.