TY  - JOUR
A1  - Braga, Raul Renno
A1  - Gomez-Aparicio, Lorena
A1  - Heger, Tina
A1  - Simoes Vitule, Jean Ricardo
A1  - Jeschke, Jonathan M.
T1  - Structuring evidence for invasional meltdown
BT  - broad support but with biases and gaps
JF  - Biological invasions : unique international journal uniting scientists in the broad field of biological invasions
N2  - Negative interactions have been suggested as a major barrier for species arriving in a new habitat. More recently, positive interactions drew attention from community assembly theory and invasion science. The invasional meltdown hypothesis (IMH) introduced the idea that positive interactions among non-native species could facilitate one another’s invasion, even increasing their impact upon the native community. Many studies have addressed IMH, but with contrasting results, reflecting various types of evidence on a multitude of scales. Here we use the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach to differentiate key aspects of IMH, organizing and linking empirical studies to sub-hypotheses of IMH. We also assess the level of empirical support for each sub-hypothesis based on the evidence reported in the studies. We identified 150 studies addressing IMH. The majority of studies support IMH, but the evidence comes from studies with different aims and questions. Supporting studies at the community or ecosystem level are currently rare. Evidence is scarce for marine habitats and vertebrates. Few sub-hypotheses are questioned by more than 50% of the evaluated studies, indicating that non-native species do not affect each other’s survival, growth, reproduction, abundance, density or biomass in reciprocal A ↔ B interactions. With the HoH for IMH presented here, we can monitor progress in empirical tests and evidences of IMH. For instance, more tests at the community and ecosystem level are needed, as these are necessary to address the core of this hypothesis.
KW  - Facilitation
KW  - Mutualism
KW  - Review
KW  - Nonindigenous
KW  - Exotic
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1582-2
SN  - 1387-3547
SN  - 1573-1464
VL  - 20
IS  - 4
SP  - 923
EP  - 936
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -