Non-native vascular flora of the Arctic: Taxonomic richness, distribution and pathways

Pawel Wasowicz; Alexander N Sennikov; Kristine B Westergaard; Katie Spellman; Matthew Carlson; Lynn J Gillespie; Jeffery M Saarela; Steven S Seefeldt; Bruce Bennett; Christian Bay; Stefanie Ickert-Bond; Henry Väre

doi:10.1007/s13280-019-01296-6

Non-native vascular flora of the Arctic: Taxonomic richness, distribution and pathways

Ambio. 2020 Mar;49(3):693-703. doi: 10.1007/s13280-019-01296-6. Epub 2019 Dec 2.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Borgir vid Nordurslod, 600, Akureyri, Iceland. pawel@ni.is.
² Botanical Museum, Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 7, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
³ Komarov Botanical Institute, Prof. Popov str. 2, St. Petersburg, Russia.
⁴ Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, PO Box 5685, Torgarden, 7485, Trondheim, Norway.
⁵ International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2160 Koyukuk Dr., Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA.
⁶ Alaska Center for Conservation Science, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99515, USA.
⁷ Research and Collections, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, ON, K1P 6P4, Canada.
⁸ Botany Section and Centre for Arctic Knowledge & Exploration, Research and Collections, Canadian Museum of Nature, 240 McLeod Street, Ottawa, ON, K2P 2R1, Canada.
⁹ Washington State University-Mount Vernon Northwest Research and Extension Center, 16650 State Route 536, Mount Vernon, WA, 98273, USA.
¹⁰ Yukon Department of Environment, Conservation Data Centre, 10 Burns Road, Whitehorse, YT, Y1A 2C6, Canada.
¹¹ Institute for Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark.
¹² Herbarium (ALA), Museum of the North, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1962 Yukon Dr., Fairbanks, AK, 99775, USA.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive list of non-native vascular plants known from the Arctic, explore their geographic distribution, analyze the extent of naturalization and invasion among 23 subregions of the Arctic, and examine pathways of introductions. The presence of 341 non-native taxa in the Arctic was confirmed, of which 188 are naturalized in at least one of the 23 regions. A small number of taxa (11) are considered invasive; these plants are known from just three regions. In several Arctic regions there are no naturalized non-native taxa recorded and the majority of Arctic regions have a low number of naturalized taxa. Analyses of the non-native vascular plant flora identified two main biogeographic clusters within the Arctic: American and Asiatic. Among all pathways, seed contamination and transport by vehicles have contributed the most to non-native plant introduction in the Arctic.

Keywords: Alien species; Arctic; Invasive species; Non-native species; Pathways; Vascular plants.

MeSH terms

Arctic Regions
Introduced Species*
Plants*