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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

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Authors

Ali Omer

Trevor Fristoe

Qiang Yang

Noëlie Maurel

Patrick Weigelt

Holger Kreft

Jonas Bleilevens

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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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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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