Invasive neo‐species and how to name them

Abstract

Range-expansion and speciation are not new to life on Earth, but they have been scarcely observed contemporarily and, likely, never over several continents simultaneously. Evidence of incipient reproductive isolation between native and non-native regions of some invasive alien species indicates that invasive speciation is closer than we expected. Some neo-allopatric populations are likely to qualify as distinguishable subspecies already. Given their trajectory, whether they will become new species is not an if, but a when. I present two decision tables to help to (1) assess the coining of new invasive species or subspecies with the current taxonomical approach or (2), introduce the term “neo” to name invasive neo-species resulting from synchronous allopatric speciation from a single, known, living ancestor. This latter case can be exemplified with the hypothetical names: “Ginkgo biloba neo americana”, “G. biloba neo europea”, etc.