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 identified IAS and (ii) realized sensitivity of 1600 native vertebrates to this threat. We used the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species to identify species threatened by IAS, their distribution, and the species' range characteristics of their associated IAS. We found that 38% of worldwide terrestrial lands are exposed to biological invasions, but exposure alone was insufficient to assess vulnerability since we further found that most of the world hosted native species sensitive to biological invasions. We delineated areas highly vulnerable to biological invasions, that is, combining areas of high exposure and high sensitivity to IAS, located in Australia and coastal states of North America with a high confidence level, but also—depending on the group—in Pacific islands, Southern America, Western Europe, Southern Africa, Eastern Asia, and New‐Zealand with a medium confidence level. Assessing the completeness in exposure data, we revealed strong biases in the global description of the well‐known invasion hotspots, with limited areas being assessed with a medium to high confidence level. The completeness of sensitivity was overall very high, for the three studied taxonomic groups. We also demonstrated that coldspots of vulnerability to biological invasions were areas of low confidence in terms of data completeness, which coincided with biodiversity hotspots. There is thus a critical need to address these knowledge shortfalls which jeopardize efficient conservation initiatives, regarding the threats to well‐known vertebrate taxa.

中文翻译：

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全球陆生脊椎动物对生物入侵的暴露和敏感性


虽然生物入侵继续威胁生物多样性，但目前的大多数评估都集中在单独暴露于外来入侵物种 （IAS） 上，而没有考虑本地物种对威胁的反应。在这里，我们通过评估脊椎动物对生物入侵的脆弱性来解决这一差距，结合 （i） 暴露于 304 种已确定的 IAS 和 （ii） 1600 种本地脊椎动物对这种威胁的敏感性。我们使用 IUCN 濒危物种红色名录来识别受 IAS 威胁的物种、它们的分布以及相关 IAS 的物种分布特征。我们发现，全球 38% 的陆地土地暴露于生物入侵，但仅靠暴露不足以评估脆弱性，因为我们进一步发现世界上大多数地区都拥有对生物入侵敏感的本地物种。我们划定了极易受到生物入侵的区域，即结合位于澳大利亚和北美沿海各州的高置信度高度暴露和高度敏感的区域，但也以中等置信度划分位于太平洋岛屿、南美洲、西欧、南部非洲、东亚和新西兰的太平洋岛屿、南美洲、西欧、南部非洲、东亚和新西兰。通过评估暴露数据的完整性，我们揭示了对已知入侵热点的全球描述中存在强烈的偏差，以中到高置信度评估了有限区域。对于所研究的三个分类组，敏感性的完整性总体上非常高。我们还证明，易受生物入侵影响的冷点在数据完整性方面是低置信度的领域，这与生物多样性热点相吻合。 因此，迫切需要解决这些知识不足，这些知识不足会危及对知名脊椎动物分类群的威胁，从而危及有效的保护举措。