Both source and recipient range phylogenetic community structure can predict the outcome of avian introductions

Competing phylogenetic models have been proposed to explain the success of species introduced to other communities. Here, we present a study predicting the establishment success of birds introduced to Florida, Hawaii, and New Zealand using several alternative models, considering species’ phylogenetic relatedness to source and recipient range taxa, propagule pressure, and traits. We find consistent support for the predictive ability of source region phylogenetic structure. However, we find that the effects of recipient region phylogenetic structure vary in sign and magnitude depending on inclusion of source region phylogenetic structure, delineation of the recipient species pool, and the use of phylogenetic correction in the models. We argue that tests of alternative phylogenetic hypotheses including the both source and recipient community phylogenetic structure, as well as important covariates such as propagule pressure, are likely to be critical for identifying general phylogenetic patterns in introduction success, predicting future invasions, and for stimulating further exploration of the underlying mechanisms of invasibility.

Methods
This dataset describes the success or failure of bird introductions in New Zealand, Florida, and Hawaii, along with associated phylogenetic data from both source (i.e. native) and recipient regions (i.e. the regions they were introduced to).

The data used in this manuscript are derived from previously published sources, including range maps from Birdlife International (https://www.birdlife.org/), phylogenies from Birdtree.org (https://birdtree.org/), political division boundaries from the GADM dataset (https://gadm.org/), and introduction success/failure data as compiled by Maitner et al. 2012 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2011.07176.x). Data processing is documented in the Maitner et al. 2021, and the code for data processing is available at https://github.com/bmaitner/bird_invasion_phylogenetics.