Ali Omer
Characteristics of the naturalized flora of Southern Africa largely reflect the non‐random introduction of alien species for cultivation
Omer, Ali; Fristoe, Trevor; Yang, Qiang; Maurel, Noëlie; Weigelt, Patrick; Kreft, Holger; Bleilevens, Jonas; Dawson, Wayne; Essl, Franz; Pergl, Jan; Pyšek, Petr; van Kleunen, Mark
Authors
Trevor Fristoe
Qiang Yang
Noëlie Maurel
Patrick Weigelt
Holger Kreft
Jonas Bleilevens
Dr Wayne Dawson wayne.dawson@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor
Franz Essl
Jan Pergl
Petr Pyšek
Mark van Kleunen
Abstract
Biological invasions are one of the most defining features of the Anthropocene. Most studies on biological invasions focus on the later stages of the invasion process, that is after species have already become naturalized. It is frequently overlooked, however, that patterns in origin, phylogeny and traits of naturalized alien species might largely reflect which species have been introduced in the first place. Here, we quantify and assess such introduction biases by analyzing 5317 plant species introduced for cultivation (i.e. primarily as ornamental garden plants) in the 10 countries composing Southern Africa. We show that this cultivated alien flora represents a non-random subset of the global flora and that this bias at the introduction stage largely contributes to patterns in geographic origin, phylogenetic composition and traits of the naturalized flora. For example, while species from Australasia are, compared to the global flora, disproportionally overrepresented in the naturalized cultivated flora of Southern Africa, this pattern is driven by their higher likelihood of introduction for cultivation. The same is true for the overrepresentation of free-standing woody species in the naturalized cultivated flora. The strong phylogenetic clustering of the naturalized cultivated flora is also, to a large extent, driven by introduction bias. Although functional traits explained little variation in naturalization success of cultivated plants, naturalization success was more likely for plants with intermediate seed mass and height and high specific leaf area. Thus, despite strong biases in which species have been introduced to Southern Africa, there are significant patterns in the species characteristics related to naturalization probability. Our quantification of introduction biases demonstrates that they are huge, and that accounting for it is important to avoid over- or under-emphasizing the characteristics of successfully naturalized alien plants.
Citation
Omer, A., Fristoe, T., Yang, Q., Maurel, N., Weigelt, P., Kreft, H., …van Kleunen, M. (2021). Characteristics of the naturalized flora of Southern Africa largely reflect the non‐random introduction of alien species for cultivation. Ecography, 44(12), 1812-1825. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05669
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 2, 2021 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 30, 2021 |
Publication Date | 2021-12 |
Deposit Date | Jan 19, 2022 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 29, 2024 |
Journal | Ecography |
Print ISSN | 0906-7590 |
Electronic ISSN | 1600-0587 |
Publisher | Wiley Open Access |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 44 |
Issue | 12 |
Pages | 1812-1825 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05669 |
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Copyright Statement
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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