Global Alien Species First Record Database

The Global Alien Species First Record Database represents a compilation of first records of alien species across taxonomic groups and regions.

A first record denotes the year of first observation of an alien species in a region. Note that this often differs from the date of first introduction. The database covers all regions (mostly countries and some islands) globally with particularly intense sampling in Europe, North America and Australasia. First records were gathered from various data sources including online databases, scientific publications, reports and personal collections by a team of >45 researchers. The data were gathered from 102 sources consisting of online databases, scientific publications, reports and personal collections, resulting in 45,813 first records of 16,926 established alien species in 282 non-overlapping regions. A full list of data sources, an analysis of global and continental trends and more details about the data can be found in our open access publication: Seebens et al. (2017) No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide. Nature Communications 8, 14435.