Spatio-temporal dynamics of exotic fish species in the Mediterranean Sea: Over a century of invasion reconstructed.

With over a thousand of introduced species, the Mediterranean is the most heavily invaded marine region in the world. Yet, the spatio-temporal dynamics of this bioinvasion has never been analysed. Examination of a comprehensive dataset of 4015 georeferenced observations, extracted from the scientific literature, allowed (i) reconstructing the invasion and the introduction and post-introduction dynamics of exotic fish species, (ii) calculating introduction and spread rates, and (iii) investigating the time correlates since introduction.