Modeling invasions beyond equilibrium: Integrating dispersal and accessibility, physiological constraints, and ecological context to improve invasion-risk predictions

作者：Leif Howard, Charles van Rees, Sean Carter, John Kimball, Gordon Luikart · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.3897/arphapreprints.e206193 · 研究领域：Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior、Myxozoan Parasites in Aquatic Species、Aquatic Ecosystems and Phytoplankton Dynamics

Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are commonly modeled using species distribution models (SDMs) built on climate and remotely sensed data, yet these approaches often fail to represent the dispersal and establishment processes that shape invasion risk. This limitation is particularly important in freshwater systems, where human-mediated connectivity, propagule pressure, and local environmental constraints strongly influence invasion outcomes. Here, we develop and evaluate a transferable framework for generating process-informed spatial predictors representing four key components of invasion risk: environmental suitability, physiological constraints, ecological context, and dispersal/accessibility. Using zebra mussel ( Dreissena polymorpha ) invasion across 2,203 lakes in Minnesota as a case study, we evaluated how the progressive addition of process-informed predictors altered model performance and interpretation. Models based solely on environmental suitability predictors achieved moderate performance (mean TSS = 0.76). Incorporating physiological constraint and ecological context predictors produced incremental improvements, whereas dispersal/accessibility predictors generated the largest gains in predictive performance (mean TSS = 0.94). The addition of process-informed predictors also substantially reorganized predictor importance. Variables that dominated environmental-only models declined in importance as explicit representations of dispersal, establishment constraints, and...