Phylogenetic and functional distinctiveness explain alien plant population responses to competition.

ABSTRACT: Several invasion hypotheses predict a positive association between phylogenetic and functional distinctiveness of aliens and their performance, leading to the idea that distinct aliens compete less with their resident communities. However, synthetic pattern relationships between distinctiveness and alien performance and direct tests of competition as the driving mechanism have not been forthcoming. This is likely because different patterns are observed at different spatial grains, because functional trait and phylogenetic information are often incomplete, and because of the need for competition experiments that measure demographic responses across a variety of alien species that vary in their distinctiveness. We conduct a competitor removal experiment and parameterize matrix population and

SUBMITTER: Levin SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7423470 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature