Yehezkel Buba

1 Introduction Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean Islands (SOIs) have a relatively recent history of human occupation (the continent itself was only discovered ∼200 years ago), and far less human activity than is typical of most continents and islands elsewhere (Chown et al., 2017). Yet the region is not free of alien species and their impacts.

Reducing the rate of alien species introductions is a major conservation aim. However, accurately quantifying the rate at which species are introduced into new regions remains a challenge due to the confounding effect of observation efforts on discovery records. Despite the recognition of this issue, most analyses are still based on raw discovery records, leading to biased inferences.

1 WHY A PERSISTENT FOCUS ON INVASION TRENDS? The documented numbers of alien species in new locations have continued to increase over recent decades (Seebens et al., 2017).