A phylogenetic analysis of the British flora sheds light on the evolutionary and ecological factors driving plant invasions.

ABSTRACT: Darwin's naturalization hypothesis predicts that invasive species should perform better in their novel range in the absence of close relatives in the native flora due to reduced competition. Evidence from recent taxonomic and phylogenetic-based studies, however, is equivocal. We test Darwin's naturalization hypothesis at two different spatial scales using a fossil-dated molecular phylogenetic tree of the British native and alien flora (ca. 1600 species) and extensive, fine-scale survey data from the 1998 Countryside Survey. At both landscape and local scales, invasive species were neither significantly more nor less related to the native flora than their non-invasive alien counterparts. Species invasiveness was instead correlated with higher nitrogen and moisture preference, but not other

SUBMITTER: Lim J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4267865 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature