Measey, J., Robinson, T.B., Kruger, N., Zengeya, T.A., Hurley, B.P. (2020). South Africa as a Donor of Alien Animals. In: van Wilgen, B., Measey, J., Richardson, D., Wilson, J., Zengeya, T. (eds) Biological Invasions in South Africa. Invading Nature - Springer Series in Invasion Ecology, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_27
This review provides the first assessment of animal species that are native to South Africa and invasive elsewhere in the world. While around a twelfth of all naturalised plants in the world are native to South Africa, there are very few examples of South African native marine, terrestrial, or freshwater animals becoming invasive elsewhere. We provide a narrative of each of the 34 cases that we could find. Three of these species, the Common Waxbill, Estrilda astrild, the Mozambique Tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus and the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis, were widely traded, and introduced on several continents with invasive populations becoming the subject of substantial research. Most other species are poorly documented in the literature such that it is often not known whether South African populations are the source of invasions. These species demonstrate the same trend in pathways of animals entering South Africa, moving from deliberate to accidental through time. The role of mavericks, individuals whose deliberate actions wilfully facilitate invasions, is highlighted. While South Africa has acted as an important bridgehead for the invasions of forestry pests, crayfish, fish and amphibians on the continent, it is clearly not a major donor of animal invasions, but rather a recipient. This could be due to South African ecosystems being fundamentally more invasible, or South African fauna showing reduced invasiveness, though it is likely that substantial differences in historical pathways also played a crucial role.