Why are non-native plants successful? Consistently fast economic traits and novel origin jointly explain abundance across US ecoregions
New Phytologist
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Abstract
- Are non-native plants abundant because they are non-native, and have advantages over native plants, or because they possess ‘fast’ resource strategies, and have advantages in disturbed environments? This question is central to invasion biology but remains unanswered.
- We quantified the relative importance of resource strategy and biogeographic origin in 69 441 plots across the conterminous United States containing 11 280 plant species.
- Non-native species had faster economic traits than native species in most plant communities (77%, 86% and 82% of plots for leaf nitrogen concentration, specific leaf area, and leaf dry matter content). Non-native species also had distinct patterns of abundance, but these were not explained by their fast traits. Compared with functionally similar native species, non-native species were (1) more abundant in plains and deserts, indicating the importance of biogeographic origin, and less abundant in forested ecoregions, (2) were more abundant where co-occurring species had fast traits, for example due to disturbance, and (3) showed weaker signals of local environmental filtering.
- These results clarify the nature of plant invasion: Although non-native plants have consistently fast economic traits, other novel characteristics and processes likely explain their abundance and, therefore, impacts.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Why are non-native plants successful? Consistently fast economic traits and novel origin jointly explain abundance across US ecoregions |
| Series title | New Phytologist |
| DOI | 10.1111/nph.70307 |
| Volume | 248 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication Date | June 24, 2025 |
| Year Published | 2025 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | New Phytologist Foundation |
| Contributing office(s) | Fort Collins Science Center |
| Description | 13 p. |
| First page | 1192 |
| Last page | 1204 |
| Country | United States |
| Other Geospatial | conterminous United States |