Habitat properties and plant traits interact as drivers of non‐native plant species’ seed production at the local scale

Abstract

To answer the long‐standing question if we can predict plant invader success based on characteristics of the environment (invasibility) or the invasive species (invasiveness), or the combination of both, there is a need for detailed observational studies in which habitat properties, non‐native plant traits, and the resulting invader success are locally measured. In this study, we assess the interaction of gradients in the environmental and trait space on non‐native species fitness, expressed as seed production, for a set of 10 invasive and noninvasive non‐native species along a wide range of invaded sites in Flanders. In our multidimensional approach, most of the single environmental gradients (temperature, light availability, native plant species diversity, and soil fertility) and sets of non‐native plant traits (plant size, photosynthesis, and foliar chemical attributes) related positively with invader seed production. Yet correlation with seed production was much stronger when several environmental gradients were assessed in interaction, and even more so when we combined plant traits and habitat properties. The latter increased explanatory power of the models on average by 25% for invasive and by 7% for noninvasive species. Additionally, we report a 70‐fold higher seed production in invasive than in noninvasive species and fundamentally different correlations of seed production with plant traits and habitat properties in noninvasive versus invasive species. We conclude that locally measured traits and properties deserve much more attention than they currently get in invasion literature and thus encourage further studies combining this level of detail with the generality of a multiregion and multispecies approach across different stages of invasion.

Urban alien plants in temperate oceanic regions of Europe originate from warmer native ranges

“…This study demonstrated that global databases (such as GIBF.org, WorldClim, Copernicus Imperviousness Density), if cautiously used, are relevant for analyses at a continental scale. The strong relationship between urbanity in the invaded range and climatic conditions in the modelled native range, at a continental scale, suggests that even stronger microclimatic effects might be at play at local scales, as suggested by previous studies (Botham et al 2009;Walther et al 2009;Lembrechts et al 2018). Even if we acknowledge variability within species and limited number of studied species, the strong pattern found in the current study confirmed that this global relationship with climatic conditions of origin is consistent, and highlighted that multi-species studies are essential for comprehending invasion processes and urban invasion ecology (Catford et al 2011).…”

Morphological Diversity of <i>Dorystoechas hastata</i>, a Relict Endemic Species, Across Habitat Variability

“…Although both Beldibi and Kesmebogazi (Kemer) are under 500 m elevation, the populations exhibited drastically different plant diameter values due to soil type and fertility. Similarly, the effects of habitat characteristics on plant size and other morphological traits were previous reported for other species [26,27].…”

Running off the road: roadside non-native plants invading mountain vegetation

“…While climatic conditions (as represented by elevation) and habitat characteristics were important drivers of non-native species richness away from roadsides in most regions; the effect of non-native species richness on the roadside was only significant in Argentina and Australia. If non-native richness at roadsides can be taken as a proxy for propagule availability, this suggests that plant invasion away from the roadside in mountains is not just a stochastic process driven by the roadside non-native species pool, but that it depends on a match between species traits and habitat characteristics (Pollnac and Rew 2014;Lembrechts et al 2018).…”