In the Anthropocene, alien species are no longer the only category of biological organism establishing and rapidly spreading beyond historical boundaries. We review evidence showing that invasions by native species are a global phenomenon and present case studies from Southern Africa, and elsewhere, that reveal how climate-mediated expansions of native plants into adjacent communities can emulate the functional and structural changes associated with invasions by alien plant species. We conclude that integrating native invasions into ecological practice and theory will improve mechanistic models and better inform policy and adaptive ecological management in the 21st century.

在人类世，外来物种不再是建立并迅速超越历史界限的唯一生物生物类别。我们审查了证据，表明本土物种的入侵是一种全球现象，并从南部非洲及其他地区进行了案例研究，揭示了气候介导的本土植物向邻近社区的扩展如何模拟与外来植物入侵相关的功能和结构变化物种。我们得出的结论是，将本土入侵纳入生态实践和理论将改善机制模型，并更好地为21世纪的政策和适应性生态管理提供信息。