Invasive alien species spread through the environment and threaten native biodiversity, assisted by the absence of natural enemies. Alien species may also carry pathogens, which can be transmitted to native species. About half of the known endangered species are under threat from invasive alien species. The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2008 invited rele...

1. Plants interact with many organisms, such as microbes and herbivores, and these interactions are likely to affect the establishment and spread of plants. In the context of plant invasions, mycorrhizal fungi and constitutive and induced resistance of plants against herbivores have received attention independently of each other. However, plants are frequently involved in complex multi-trophic ...

Many alien plants use animal vectors for dispersal of their diaspores (zoochory). If alien plants interact with native disperser animals, this can interfere with animal-mediated dispersal of native diaspores. Interference by alien species is known for frugivorous animals dispersing fruits of terrestrial plants by ingestion, transport and egestion (endozoochory). However, less attention has been...

Understanding the mechanisms that affect invasion success of alien species is an important prerequisite for the effective management of present and future aliens. To gain insight into this matter we asked the following questions: Are the geographical patterns of species distributions in urban floras different for native compared with alien plant species? Does the introduction of alien species c...

Aim Introduced alien species are frequently implicated in ecosystem disruption and biodiversity loss, but some ecologists have recently argued that efforts to manage ecosystems should be refocused on known problematic species without regard to whether such species are native or alien. This argument rests on the premise that native and alien species in general do not differ in their impacts. Alt...

Alien plants have greatly altered some native plant communities and threaten others in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. The Park contains approximately 405 alien and 375 native vascular plant species. Desultory efforts were made to control alien plants until the 1980s, at which time a systematic program was initiated. The following strategies or actions have been taken to protect native species...

Understanding determinants of the invasiveness and ecological impacts of alien species is amongst the most sought-after and urgent research questions in ecology. Several studies have shown the value of comparing the functional responses (FRs) of alien and native predators towards native prey, however, the technique is under-explored with herbivorous alien species and as a predictor of invasiven...

Plant traits associated with alien invasiveness may also distinguish rare from common native species. To test this, we grew 23 native (9 common, 14 rare) and 18 alien (8 common, 10 rare) herbaceous species in Switzerland from six plant families under nutrient-addition and competition treatments. Alien and common species achieved greater biomass than native and rare species did overall respectiv...

First, a geographical barrier must be overcome, which often occurs as a mountain range, ocean, or similar physical barrier to movement of seeds and other reproductive plant parts. Plants that overcome geographical barriers are known as alien plants or alien species. Alien plants are non-native plants and alien species are nonnative species. Therefore, non-native plants are those that occur outs...

Developing generalisations of invasive species is an important part of invasion biology. However, trends and generalisations from one part of the world may not necessarily hold elsewhere. We present the first inventory and analysis of all Hymenoptera alien to New Zealand, and compare patterns from New Zealand with those previously published from Europe (DAISIE). Between the two regions there wa...