Time to retire “alien” from the invasion ecology lexicon

Language changes and evolves over time with words taking on new meaning, losing their existing meaning, or simply expanding in meaning. Likewise, some words become archaic and are eventually lost in modern practice. Finally, words may not change meaning, but society's view of them does. Such is the case with many words that had negative or hurtful connotations in the past, but were used with little consideration of their impacts. Such words hurt and may lead to unintended consequences for those individuals and organizations that use them. One word that has a long history in ecology and can have unintended consequences is "alien", particularly in reference to non-native and invasive species. For instance, house sparrows [Passer domesticus) are alien in North America, gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are alien in the UK, and North American beavers [Castor canadensis) are alien in the Tierra del Fuego region of South America.