LB 22-231 - CANCELLED - Regional phylogenetic diversity drives invasion success in woody plants on a global scale.

Background/Question/Methods:

Globalization has resulted in the anthropogenic movement of plant species, many of which have established and become invasive in their secondary ranges. Comparing characteristics between the native and non-native range has become a basis for hypotheses explaining invasion success, yet we still lack evidence to explain the factors facilitating successful plant invasion. Research suggests that plant invasion is a multi-step process with four stages: introduction, establishment, spread, and impact. We use this framework to examine and understand the ecological factors that act as successive filters of invasion success. We investigate how anthropogenic connectivity (introduction), environmental suitability (establishment), and biodiversity (spread) between native and non-native regions contribute to explain the current invasive distributions (invasion success) of 214 woody invasive plant species. This study uses multiple publicly available databases to compile variables including USDA trade data, species distribution models using WORLDCLIM abiotic characteristics, and divergence in regional phylogenetic diversity as metrics of anthropogenic connectivity, environmental suitability, and biodiversity, respectively. We developed an explanatory model to quantify the relative importance of these variables on the probability of invasive presence of the woody plant species across the globe.

Results/Conclusions:

Overall, we found that the probability of invasive presence was positively affected by all covariates. Divergence of phylogenetic diversity between native and non-native regions was the strongest contributing factor. Specifically, species native to phylogenetically diverse regions were more likely to be invasive compared to species native to phylogenetically poor regions. Moreover, species native to phylogenetically diverse regions were more likely to be invasive in regions with lower phylogenetic diversity. Furthermore, when the diversity of a species’ native range was lower than that of the non-native range, invasion success was low. Notably, we found this to be the case even when habitat suitability and connectivity were high. This study is the first to highlight the importance of the diversity of a species’ native range on a global scale.