Economic use of plants is key to their naturalization success

Abstract

Humans cultivate thousands of economic plants (i.e. plants with economic value) outside their native ranges. To analyze how this contributes to naturalization success, we combine global databases on economic uses and naturalization success of the world's seed plants. Here we show that naturalization likelihood is 18 times higher for economic than noneconomic plants. Naturalization success is highest for plants grown as animal food or for environmental uses (e.g. ornamentals), and increases with number of uses. Taxa from the Northern Hemisphere are disproportionately over-represented among economic plants, and economic plants from Asia have the greatest naturalization success. In regional naturalized floras, the percentage of economic plants exceeds the global percentage and increases towards the equator. Phylogenetic patterns in the naturalized flora partly result from phylogenetic patterns in the plants we cultivate. Our study illustrates that accounting for the intentional introduction of economic plants is key to unravelling drivers of plant naturalization.

Toward Unifying Global Hotspots of Wild and Domesticated Biodiversity

“…Hotspots of high plant richness and endemism include Mesoamerica, the tropical Andes, the Amazon, Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest, Central Africa, the western Ghats, South-East Asia, and many islands (e.g., Madagascar, New Guinea), mountainous regions (e.g., Alps, Caucasus) and Mediterranean areas (e.g., Cape floristic region). Despite their international recognition, most of these regions have become increasingly depleted under ongoing human pressures, whereas richness may increase at their periphery through repeated introductions in gardens and disturbed habitats [ 56 ]. These processes are leading to a global loss of diversity and increasing biotic homogenisation [ 57 ].…”

Role of diversification rates and evolutionary history as a driver of plant naturalization success

“…We consider two additional predictors, mean species range within a family and economic use, to be able to disentangle the role and relative importance of evolutionary history from these other important drivers of naturalization success. Economic use is one major driver of plant invasions (van Kleunen et al 2020) Accepted Article with estimates of 75-93% of naturalized alien plants being cultivated worldwide (van Kleunen et al 2018). The more individuals of a species (and the more species of a family) are traded and cultivated, the more farreaching the dispersal of propagules and the higher the likelihood that the species becomes established outside its native range.…”

“…All rights reserved Besides evolutionary and ecological reasons, socioeconomic factors and human history strongly influence the geographic distribution of alien species worldwide. Horticulture is a major driver of transporting plant species across the world (Bradley et al 2012;Mayer et al 2017;van Kleunen et al 2018van Kleunen et al , 2020.…”

Opposing macroevolutionary and trait-mediated patterns of threat and naturalization in flowering plants

“…Successful plant invasions are conditioned on context-specific factors that include use (van Kleunen et al 2020) and transport by humans (Kueffer 2017), degree of climate matching (Thuiller et al 2005), residence time (Wilson et al 2007), propagule pressure (Simberloff 2009), geography of habitat alteration and anthropogenic disturbance (Lembrechts et al 2016), and the invasibility of particular communities and biogeographic regions (Richardson & Pyšek 2006). Nonetheless, successful invasions have been correlated in comparative studies with a suite of traitsauto-fertility (Razanajatovo et al 2016), self-compatibility (Hao et al 2011), height (van Kleunen et al 2007), small seeds (Hamilton et al 2005), high specific leaf area (Hamilton et al 2005), large native range size (Schmidt et al 2012, van Kleunen et al 2007, broad climate and habitat tolerances (Schmidt et al 2012, Bradshaw et al 2008, competitive ability (Guo et al 2018), variability and perhaps plasticity in growth form and life history (Schmidt et al 2012), abiotic pollination (Hao et al 2011), polyploidy (Schmidt et al 2012) and hybridization (Ellstrand & Schierenbeck 2000) that appear consistently advantageous (Table 1).…”