anthropochory

Noun

anthropochory (uncountable)

1. The (typically inadvertent) dispersal of seeds, spores, or other reproductive botanical material, or of reproductively capable animals, by humans as a routine means of reproductive dispersal of that species.
2. The (typically inadvertent and sporadic) dispersal by humans, of seeds, spores, or other reproductive botanical material, or of reproductively capable animals, into a region where they do not natively occur, resulting in adventitious anthropochorous establishment of an alien population if successful.
   • Stephenson stressed the importance of anthropochory in earthworm dispersal. Human introductions, either intentional or unconscious, play a key role in earthworm invasions, as is well demonstrated by the presence of European Lumbricidae in North America, Asia, New Zealand2006, Juhani Terhivuo, Anssi Saura, "Dispersal and clonal diversity of North-European parthenogenetic earthworms", in Paul F. Hendrix, Biological Invasions Belowground: Earthworms as Invasive Species...