Naturalisation (biology)

In botany, it is the fact for an exogenous plant to reproduce naturally in a new environment. For example, Canadian thuja is naturalized in United Kingdom, where it reproduces on its own, while it is not in France, where the we must cuttings artificially.

Two categories of naturalization are defined from two distinct parameters: one, archaeonaturalized, refers to a notion of time (introduced over a hundred years ago), while the second, amphinaturalized or eurynaturalized, implies a notion of spatial extension (taxon assimilated indigenous and present over a vast space, opposed to stenonaturalized).

Animal naturalization is mainly carried out through breeding and by commensalism following human migrations.[3][4]

The species concerned are thus:

• either introduced voluntarily into an ecosystem where they are not native;
• either accidentally introduced or become feral;
• or by naturally following human migratory flows by commensalism (eg: arrival of house sparrow in Western Europe following Huns, and previously in Eastern Europe from Asia Minor in Antiquity).

It sometimes happens that a naturalized species hybridizes with a native.[4]

The introduction site or introduction area is the place or, in a broadlier way, the new environment where the candidate species for naturalization takes root. It is generally opposed to the ​​origin area, where this same species is native.

There is also a more ambiguous notion that is the "natural distribution area" or "natural distribution range", particularly when it comes to anthorpophilic species or some species benefiting from anthropogenic land settlement (canals, bridges, deforestation, etc.) that have connected two previously isolated areas (eg: the Suez canal which causes Lessepsian migration).

Naturalization is sometimes done with human help in order to replace another species having suffered directly or indirectly from anthropogenic activities, or deemed less profitable for human activity.[5]

Some naturalized species eventually become invasive. For example, the wild rabbit, native to Europe and which abounds in Australia; or the Japanese knotweed which is invading Europe and America where it is considered amongst of the one hundred most invasive species]] in the 21st century [6] Apart from direct competition between native and introduced populations, genetic pollution by hybridization can add up cumulatively to environmental effects that compromise the conservation of native populations [7]

However, the impact on local species is not easy to assess in a short period. For instance, Sacred Ibis ( Threskiornis aethiopicus ) escaped in 1990 from an animal park in Morbihan (France), gave rise to an eradication campaign in 2008. In 2013, however, the CNRS considered that this bird species is not a threat in France, but on the opposite it promotes Eurasian Spoonbill and limits the development of the invasive Louisiana crayfish[8].

In biology, naturalisation (or naturalization) is any process by which a non-native organism or species spreads into the wild and its reproduction is sufficient to maintain its population. Such populations are said to be naturalised (naturalized).

Some populations do not sustain themselves reproductively, but exist because of continued influx from elsewhere. Such a non-sustaining population, or the individuals within it, are said to be adventive.[9] Cultivated plants are a major source of adventive populations.

Naturalised species may become invasive species if they become sufficiently abundant to have an adverse effect on native plants and animals.

• Adventive species
• Cosmopolitan distribution
• Endemism
• Indigenous (ecology)
• Introduced species
• Invasive species