Habitat modification in the native range promotes invasion

The Anthropogenically Induced Adaptation to Invade (AIAI) hypothesis posits that selection in human-modified habitats within native ranges can adapt populations to invade similarly altered environments elsewhere. Although widely invoked, empirical tests of AIAI remain limited, largely because disentangling native-range adaptation from post-introduction evolution has been challenging. Here, we clarify how anthropogenic disturbance creates repeatable selective regimes and demonstrate how integrating targeted sampling, population genomics, and genotype-environment associations can disentangle native-range adaptation from post-introduction evolution, making AIAI explicitly testable. Incorporating analyses of genomic offset, genetic architecture, non-genetic components of adaptation, controlled experiments, and temporal data further strengthens inference. Together, these innovations establish AIAI as a unifying framework linking human disturbance, evolutionary dynamics, and invasions, with value for prediction and management.