Tokiyo OKIMURA Akira MORI Functional and taxonomic perspectives for understanding the underlying mechanisms of native and alien plant distributions We surveyed the distribution of alien and native plant species and their functional traits on the roadside vegetation. We established 362 quadrats, and measured vegetation, environmental and spatial factors, and also collected functional traits data...

Alien has characteristics of a corepressor for selected members of the nuclear hormone receptor (NHR) superfamily and also for transcription factors involved in cell cycle regulation and DNA repair. Alien mediates gene silencing and represses the transactivation of specific NHRs and other transcription factors to modulate hormone response and cell proliferation. Alien is a highly conserved prot...

In the framework of the European Alien Species Information Network (EASIN; http://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu/), an inventory of marine alien species in Europe was created by critically reviewing existing information in 34 global, European, regional and national databases. In total, 1369 marine alien species have been reported in the European seas (including 110 cryptogenic and 139 questionable spec...

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...

Studies of pairwise interactions have shown that an alien plant can affect the pollination of a native plant, this effect being mediated by shared pollinators. Here we use a manipulative field experiment, to investigate the impact of the alien plant Impatiens glandulifera on an entire community of coflowering native plants. Visitation and pollen transport networks were constructed to compare re...

An explanation for successful invasion is that invasive alien species sustain less pressure from natural enemies than co-occurring native species. Using meta-analysis, we examined whether invasive species: (1) incur less damage, (2) exhibit better performance in the presence of enemies, and (3) tolerate damage more than native species. Invasive alien species did not incur less damage than nativ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...