Thirty years later, should we be more concerned for the ongoing invasion of Mozambique Tilapia in Australia?

Abstract

Exotic speCies complicate the management of native biological diversity and their ecosystems, because their effects are pervasive and varied (Cox 2004). For example, they can be beneficial and integral components of global agricultural economies (Sax et al, 2007), but when unmanaged and by definition invasive, they can negatively change important variables such as the genetics and population size of individual species, the diversity and structure of ecological communities, disturbance regimes and biogeochemical cycling (Vitousek 1990).