A conceptual map of invasion biology: Integrating hypotheses into a consensus network

Abstract

The network visually synthesizes how invasion biology's predominant hypotheses are conceptually related to each other, and thus, reveals an emergent structure - a <i>conceptual map</i> - that can serve as a navigation tool for scholars, practitioners and students, both inside and outside of the field of invasion biology, and guide the development of a more coherent foundation of theory. Additionally, the outlined approach can be more widely applied to create a conceptual map for the larger fields of ecology and biogeography.