Testing the assumption of environmental equilibrium in an invasive plant species over a 130 year history

Invasive plants are an increasing threat to global biodiversity. Effective management depends on accurate predictions of their spread. However, modelling the geographic distribution invasive species, particularly with correlative species models (SDMs), is challenging. SDMs assume that in equilibrium environment (i.e. they occur all suitable environments); this assumption likely be violated for a actively invading new environments. This rarely assessed, and when can have consequences model reliability. Using vine Vincetoxicum rossicum, we tested hypotheses that: 1) species' environmental space increase plateau over time; 2) useful proxy distribution, key underlying SDMs. We compare V. rossicum's expansion between historical current time periods infer its has remained stable extended period. also performance from predicting rossicum. found rossicum reached space, but still expanding distribution. SDM was poor first 30 years following introduction, improved as approached equilibrium. Our findings demonstrate power including temporal dynamics need consider separately species. In light our findings, address shortcomings approach defining present perspective reconciling potentially confounding influence dispersal limitation assessing