Guillaume Latombe

University of Edinburgh | UoE · School of Biological Sciences

Biological invasions are a major threat to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and nature's contributions to people worldwide. However, the effectiveness of invasive alien species (IAS) management measures and the progress toward achieving biodiversity targets remain uncertain due to limited and nonuniform data availability. Management success is u...

While biological invasions continue to threaten biodiversity, most of current assessments focus on the sole exposure to invasive alien species (IAS), without considering native species' response to the threat. Here, we address this gap by assessing vertebrates' vulnerability to biological invasions, combining measures of both (i) exposure to 304 id...

Biological invasions pose significant threats to biodiversity, while impacting ecosystem services, human health, and cultural heritage. Despite these far-ranging effects, their impacts are generally underappreciated by both the public and policymakers, resulting in insufficient management and inadequate conservation outcomes. Recognizing the gap in...

Conservation decisions often need to integrate scientific predictions with societal values, ethical systems, and diverse perceptions that combine to form moral stances about conservation actions (e.g., trophy hunting or controlling invasive species). These can result in dilemmas and, if stakeholders hold different views on the morality of particula...

While data on biological invasions and their economic toll are increasingly available, drivers of susceptibility to damage and cost-effectiveness of management in reducing long-term costs remain poorly understood. We used data describing the damage costs of, and management expenditure on, invasive species among 56 nations between 2000 and 2020 repo...

Future dynamics of biological invasions are highly uncertain because they depend on multiple social–ecological drivers. We used a scenario‐based approach to explore potential management options for invasive species in Europe. During two workshops involving a multidisciplinary team of experts, we developed a management strategy arranged into 19 goal...

Biological invasions have profound impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and services, resulting in substantial economic and health costs estimated in the trillions of dollars. Preventing and managing biological invasions are vital for sustainable development, aligning with the goals of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference. Howeve...

Trait diversity, including trait turnover, that differentiates the roles of species and communities according to their functions, is a fundamental component of biodiversity. Accurately capturing trait diversity is crucial to better understand and predict community assembly, as well as the consequences of global change on community resilience. Exist...

We aim to explore what processes dominate community assembly of dragonflies (Odonata: Anisoptera) and damselflies (Odonata: Zygoptera) by differentiating the environmental and geographical drivers behind compositional turnover of narrow‐ranged versus widespread species. In this way, we further aim to describe patterns of species incidence and compo...

Invasive alien species are one of the major threats to global biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, nature's contributions to people and human health. While scenarios about potential future developments have been available for other global change drivers for quite some time, we largely lack an understanding of how biological invasions might unfold in...

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) envisions a world living in harmony with nature by 2050, with 23 intermediate targets to be achieved by 2030. However, aligning international policy and local implementation of effective actions can be challenging. Using steppe birds, one of the most threatened vertebrate groups in Europe,...

Many plant traits covary with environmental gradients, reflecting shifts in adaptive strategies and thus informing about potential consequences of future environmental change for vegetation and ecosystem functioning. Yet, the evidence of trait–environment relationships (TERs) remains too heterogeneous for reliable predictions, partially due to insu...

The drivers of susceptibility to damage and management effectiveness in reducing the biological-invasion costs remain poorly understood. We used InvaCost data describing the damage costs of, and management expenditure on, invasive species among 56 nations to test whether higher-income nations have more capacity to limit the damage incurred by invas...

Aims Spatio‐temporal processes play a key role in ecology, from genes to large‐scale macroecological and biogeographical processes. Existing methods studying such spatio‐temporally structured data either simplify the dynamic structure or the complex interactions of ecological drivers. The aim of this paper is to present a generic method for ecologi...

Trait diversity, including trait turnover, that differentiates the roles of species and communities according to their functions, is a fundamental component of biodiversity. Accurately capturing trait diversity is crucial to better understand and predict community assembly, as well as the consequences of global change on community resilience. Exist...

Aim: Spatio-temporal processes play a key role in ecology, from genes to large-scale macroecological and biogeographical processes. Existing methods studying such spatio-temporally structured data either simplify the dynamic structure or the complex interactions of ecological drivers. This paper aims to present a generic method for ecological resea...

The redistribution of alien species across the globe accelerated with the start of European colonialism. European powers were responsible for the deliberate and accidental transportation, introduction and establishment of alien species throughout their occupied territories and the metropolitan state. Here, we show that these activities left a lasti...

1. Invasive alien species are one of the major threats to global biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, natures contribution to people and human health. While scenarios about potential future developments have been available for other global change drivers for quite some time, we largely lack an understanding of how biological invasions might unfold in...

Future dynamics of biological invasions are highly uncertain because they depend on multiple environmental, societal and socio-economic drivers. We adopted a qualitative scenario approach to explore the future of invasive alien species (IAS) in Europe and created an overall strategy for their management that considers different plausible future dev...

Community science (also often referred to as citizen science) provides a unique opportunity to address questions beyond the scope of other research methods whilst simultaneously engaging communities in the scientific process. This leads to broad educational benefits, empowers people, and can increase public awareness of societally relevant issues s...

Unlabelled: The extent and impacts of biological invasions on biodiversity are largely shaped by an array of socio-economic and environmental factors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet, a global analysis of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how five broad, country-specific socio-econ...

The total impact of an alien species was conceptualised as the product of its range size, local abundance and per-unit effect in a seminal paper by Parker et al. (Biol Invasions 1:3–19, 1999). However, a practical approach for estimating the three components has been lacking. Here, we generalise the impact formula and, through use of regression mod...

Many plant traits covary with environmental gradients, reflecting shifts in adaptive strategies under changing conditions and thus providing information about potential consequences of future environmental change for vegetation and ecosystem functioning. Despite extensive efforts to map trait-environment relationships, the evidence remains heteroge...

Aim Spatial compositional turnover varies considerably among co‐occurring assemblages of organisms, presumably shaped by common processes related to species traits. We investigated patterns of spatial turnover in a diverse set of marine assemblages using zeta diversity, which extends traditional pairwise measures of turnover to capture the roles of...

Perspectives in conservation are based on a variety of value systems. Such differences in how people value nature and its components lead to different evaluations of the morality of conservation goals and approaches, and often underlie disagreements in the formulation and implementation of environmental management policies. Specifically, whether a...

Invasive alien nitrogen-fixing species, such as Australian acacias, often leave a legacy of elevated available soil nitrogen after their removal. This legacy effect can facilitate secondary invasion by other alien species, thereby preventing natural restoration of areas being managed. To restore viable native plant communities in ecosystems where s...

Ecological network structure is maintained by a generalist core of common species. However, rare species contribute substantially to both the species and functional diversity of networks. Capturing changes in species composition and interactions, measured as turnover, is central to understanding the contribution of rare and common species and their...

Community structure is determined by the interplay among different processes, including biotic interactions, abiotic filtering, and dispersal. Their effects can be detected by comparing observed patterns of co-occurrence between different species (e.g. C-score and the natural metric) to patterns generated by null models based on permutations of spe...

The total impact of an alien species was conceptualised as the product of its range size, local abundance and per-unit effect in a seminal paper by Parker and colleagues in 1999, but a practical approach for estimating the three components has been lacking. Here, we generalise the impact formula and, through use of regression models, estimate the r...

Scenario analysis has emerged as a key tool to analyze complex and uncertain future socio-ecological developments. However, currently existing global scenarios (narratives of how the world may develop) have neglected biological invasions, a major threat to biodiversity and the economy. Here, we use a novel participatory process to develop a diverse...

The Amazon catchment is the largest river basin on earth, and up to 30% of its waters flow across floodplains. In its open waters, floating plants known as floating meadows abound. They can act as vectors of dispersal for their associated fauna and, therefore, can be important for the spatial structure of communities. Here, we focus on amphibian di...

Our ability to predict the outcome of invasion declines rapidly as non-native species progress through intertwined ecological barriers to establish and spread in recipient ecosystems. This is largely due to the lack of systemic knowledge on key processes at play as species establish self-sustaining populations within the invaded range. To address t...

Community and invasion ecology have mostly grown independently. There is substantial overlap in the processes captured by different models in the two fields, and various frameworks have been developed to reduce this redundancy and synthesize information content. Despite broad recognition that community and invasion ecology are interconnected, a pro...

The extent and impacts of biological invasions on biodiversity are largely shaped by an array of socio-ecological predictors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet a global synthetic perspective of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how a set of five socio-ecological predictors (Governance...

Scenario analysis has emerged as a key tool to analyze complex and uncertain future socio-ecological developments. However, current global scenarios (narratives of how the world may develop) have neglected biological invasions, a major threat to biodiversity and the economy. We used a novel participatory process to develop a diverse set of global b...

This book contains 23 chapters divided into seven parts. Part I reviews the key hypotheses in invasion ecology that invoke biotic interactions to explain aspects of plant invasion dynamics; and reviews models, theories and hypotheses on how invasion performance and impact of introduced species in recipient ecosystems can be conjectured according to...

This book contains 23 chapters divided into seven parts. Part I reviews the key hypotheses in invasion ecology that invoke biotic interactions to explain aspects of plant invasion dynamics; and reviews models, theories and hypotheses on how invasion performance and impact of introduced species in recipient ecosystems can be conjectured according to...

The year 2020 and the next few years are critical for the development of the global biodiversity policy agenda until the mid-21 st century, with countries agreeing to a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Reducing the substantial and still rising impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) on biod...

The number of alien species introduced and undergoing range expansion in novel environments is steadily increasing, with important consequences for native ecosystems. The efficacy of management planning and decision making to limit such invasions can be improved by understanding how interventions will impact the population dynamics of recently intr...

Perspectives in conservation can be based on a variety of value systems and normative postulates. Perspectives also vary between cultures. Such differences in what and how people value nature, underlie many disagreements and conflicts during the formulation and implementation of environmental management policies. Specifically, whether an action int...

Biological invasions are a major threat to global biodiversity with particularly strong implications for island biodiversity. Much research has been dedicated towards understanding historic and current changes in alien species distribution and impacts on islands and potential changes under future climate change. However, projections of how alien sp...

Article impact statement: In an era of profound biodiversity crisis, invasion costs, invader impacts, and human agency should not be dismissed.

We assessed the relative importance of human activity and environmental suitability as drivers of compositional dissimilarity of alien birds for 65 of the most populous cities of the Iberian Peninsula. We examined how these drivers relate to Zeta diversity (f) for alien Passeriformes and Psittaciformes. We performed the analysis using multiple orde...

Thousands of plant species have been introduced, intentionally and accidentally, to South Africa from many parts of the world. Alien plants are now conspicuous features of many South African landscapes and hundreds of species have naturalised (i.e. reproduce regularly without human intervention), many of which are also invasive (i.e. have spread ov...

Incidence, or compositional, matrices are generated for a broad range of research applications in biology. Zeta diversity provides a common currency and conceptual framework that links incidence‐based metrics with multiple patterns of interest in biology, ecology, and biodiversity science. It quantifies the variation in species (or OTU) composition...

Aim This study aims to quantify the patterns in compositional turnover of native and exotic ants on small islands in two oceans, and to explore whether such patterns are driven by similar environmental, geographical and potentially biotic variables. Location Pacific and Atlantic islands. Time period Present. Major taxa studied Ants. Methods We...

Critical thermal limits (CTLs) show much variation associated with the experimental rate of temperature change used in their estimation. Understanding the full range of variation in rate effects on CTLs and their underlying basis is thus essential if methodological noise is not to overwhelm or bias the ecological signal. We consider the effects of...

Although uncertainty is an integral part of any science, it raises doubts in public perception about scientific evidence, is exploited by denialists, and therefore potentially hinders the implementation of management actions. As a relatively young field of study, invasion science contains many uncertainties. This may explain why, despite internatio...

The extent to which climate conditions influenced the spatial distribution of hominin populations in the past is highly debated. General circulation models (GCMs) and archaeological data have been used to address this issue. Most GCMs are not currently capable of simulating past surface climate conditions with sufficiently detailed spatial resoluti...

Spatial variation in compositional diversity, or species turnover, is necessary for capturing the components of heterogeneity that constitute biodiversity. However, no incidence-based metric of pairwise species turnover can calculate all components of diversity partitioning. Zeta (ζ) diversity, the mean number of species shared by any given number...

Communities comprising alien species with different residence times are natural experiments allowing the assessment of drivers of community assembly over time. Stochastic processes (such as dispersal and fluctuating environments) should be the dominant factors structuring communities of exotic species with short residence times. In contrast, commun...

Zeta diversity provides the average number of shared species across n sites (or shared operational taxonomic units (OTUs) across n cases). It quantifies the variation in species composition of multiple assemblages in space and time to capture the contribution of the full suite of narrow, intermediate and wide-ranging species to biotic heterogeneity...

The extent to which climate conditions influenced the spatial distribution of hominin populations in the past is highly debated. General Circulation Models (GCMs) and archaeological data have been used to address this issue. Most GCMs are not currently capable of simulating past surface climate conditions with sufficiently detailed spatial resoluti...

Aim Biological invasions are a substantial threat to Antarctic biodiversity and a priority conservation policy focus for Antarctic Treaty Parties and the sovereign states of surrounding islands. Key to their strategies is prevention, including assessment of establishment risk for alien species. Despite establishment of some of the worst globally in...

Managing biological invasions relies on good global coverage of species distributions. Accurate information on alien species distributions, obtained from international policy and cross-border cooperation , is required to evaluate trans-boundary and trading partnership risks. However, a standardized approach for systematically monitoring alien speci...

The extent to which climate change has affected the course of human evolution is an enduring question. The ability to maintain spatially extensive social networks and a fluid social structure allows human foragers to “map onto” the landscape, mitigating the impact of ecological risk and conferring resilience. But what are the limits of resilience a...

Generalised dissimilarity modelling ( GDM ) applies pairwise beta diversity as a measure of species turnover with the purpose of explaining changes in species composition under changing environments or along environmental gradients. Beta diversity only captures turnover across pairs of sites and, therefore, disproportionately represents turnover in...

Managing biological invasions relies on good global coverage of species distributions. Accurate information on alien species distributions, obtained from international policy and cross-border cooperation , is required to evaluate trans-boundary and trading partnership risks. However, a standardized approach for systematically monitoring alien speci...

Neutral and niche processes are generally considered to interact in natural communities along a continuum, exhibiting community patterns bounded by pure neutral and pure niche processes. The continuum concept uses niche separation, an attribute of the community, to test the hypothesis that communities are bounded by pure niche or pure neutral condi...

Climate change and biological invasions have increased the likelihood of the establishment, growth, spread and survival of some species. With the recent and strongly motivated call for balanced consideration of the ecology and conservation of common and rare species, species undergoing range expansion are of particular interest. The notion of essen...

Description Functions to compute compositional turnover using zeta-diversity, the number of species shared by multiple assemblages. The package includes a Zeta.order() function to compute zeta-diversity for a specific number of assemblages, and a Zeta.decline() function to compute zeta-diversity for a range of numbers of assemblages. It also includ...

The dynamic nature of their internal states and the environment directly shape animals' spatial behaviours and give rise to emergent properties at broader scales in natural systems. However, integrating these dynamic features into habitat selection studies remains challenging, due to practically impossible field work to access internal states and t...

Predators impact prey populations not only by consuming individuals, but also by altering their behaviours. These nonlethal effects can influence food web properties as much as lethal effects. The mechanisms of nonlethal effects include chronic and temporary anti‐predator behaviours, the nature of which depends on the spatial dynamics of predators...

Landscapes are complex systems. Landscape dynamics are the result of multiple interacting biophysical and socioeconomic processes that are linked across a broad range of spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. Understanding and describing landscape dynamics poses enormous challenges and demands the use of new multiscale approaches to modeling...

Although Stochastic Context-Free Grammars (SCFGs) appear promising for the recognition and threat assessment of complex radar emitters in radar Electronic Support (ES) systems, techniques for learning their production rule probabilities are computationally demanding, and cannot efficiently reflect changes in operational environments. On-line learni...

Landscapes are complex systems. Landscape dynamics are the result of multiple interacting biophysical and socioeconomic processes that are linked across a broad range of spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. Understanding and describing landscape dynamics poses enormous challenges and demands the use of new multiscale approaches to modeling...

a b s t r a c t Pattern Oriented Modelling (POM) is a well-known framework for designing, parameterizing, and ana-lyzing individual based models (IBM). It assesses individual or agent based complex systems by applying inverse modelling on patterns observed in the real system of interest. However, scarcity of field data is an underlying problem in m...

Although stochastic context-free grammars (SCFGs) appear promising for recognition of radar emitters, and for estimation of their level of threat in radar electronic support (ES) systems, well-known techniques for learning their production rule probabilities are computationally demanding, and cannot efficiently reflect changes in operational enviro...

Although Stochastic context-free grammars appear promising for recognition of radar emitters, and for estimation of their respective level of threat in radar electronic support systems, well-known techniques for learning their production rule probabilities are computationally demanding. In this paper, three fast incremental alternatives, called gra...