*To understand prerequisites of biological invasions, it is imperative to know whether species have traits that pre-adapt them to become invasive elsewhere. However, few experimental studies have explicitly tested this by comparing traits between invasive and noninvasive species in their native range instead of in the nonnative range. *We used native plant material of 14 European congeneric pai...

The problem addressed in this paper is the linkage between poverty and invasive alien species (IAS) – the introduction, establishment and spread of species outside of their original range. There are two main dimensions to the problem. One is the connection between poverty and the likelihood of the introduction, establishment or spread of invasive species. It includes the relation between povert...

Invasive species cost the global economy billions of dollars each year, but ecologists have struggled to predict the risk of an introduced species naturalizing and invading. Although carefully designed experiments are needed to fully elucidate what makes some species invasive, much can be learned from unintentional experiments involving the introduction of species beyond their native ranges. He...

Biological invasions continue to accelerate, and there is a need for closer integration between invasive species research and on-the-ground management. In many regions, aquatic invasive species have established isolated populations, but have not yet spread to many sites that provide suitable habitat. In the Laurentian Great Lakes region, several Great Lakes invaders such as zebra mussel (Dreiss...

The question of why some introduced species become invasive and others do not is the central puzzle of invasion biology. Two of the principal explanations for this phenomenon concern functional traits: invasive species may have higher values of competitively advantageous traits than non-invasive species, or they may have greater phenotypic plasticity in traits that permits them to survive the c...

Flowering phenology is an important and poorly understood plant trait that may possibly be related to the invasiveness potential of alien species. The present work evaluates whether flowering time of invasive alien species is a key trait to overcome the climatic filters operating in continental Mediterranean ecosystems of Spain (characterised by summer drought and low temperatures in winter). W...

Invasion by nonindigenous species has been recognized as second only to loss of habitat and landscape fragmentation as a threat to global biodiversity (Walker & Steffen 1997). The economic impact of these species is a major concern throughout the world. For example, an estimated 50,000 nonindigenous species established in the United States cause major environmental damage and economic losses th...

Many invasive plant species strongly alter ecosystem processes by producing leaf litter that decomposes faster and releases N more quickly than that of native species. However, while most studies of invasive species litter impacts have only considered the decomposition of species in monoculture, forest litter layers typically contain litter from many species. Many litter mixtures decompose in a...

Negative or positive feedback between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and host plants can contribute to plant species interactions, but how this feedback affects plant invasion or resistance to invasion is not well known. Here we tested how alterations in AMF community induced by an invasive plant species generate feedback to the invasive plant itself and affect subsequent interactions betwe...