Integrating abundance and trait data reveals the macroecology of invasive plant impacts - Dana Blumenthal (USDA), Ian Pearse (USGS), Helen Sofaer (USGS), Daniel Buonaiuto (University of Massachussets), and Magda Garbowski (University of Wyoming).

The impacts of invasive species increase with abundance and depend on the characteristics of the invader. Functional traits are characteristics of an organism that influence its responses to the environment and its effects on ecological processes. Functional traits mediate the success of an invasion, the impacts on other species, and the consequences for ecosystem function. Our Powell Center working group has integrated plant community data and plant trait data across the U.S. to quantify the reshaping of plant community composition and function in invaded communities. Here, we describe three components of our macroecological synthesis. First, we quantify how invasions shift functional community composition along four major axes of variation in aboveground and belowground plant traits. We find surprisingly consistent trait shifts with invasion of forest, grassland, and desert ecosystems. Second, we ask if the traits of non-native plants can explain their abundance. Results suggest that high abundance of introduced species can be attributed in large part to their relatively fast economic traits, but that introduced species are in some cases more abundant than functionally similar native species. Third, we quantify how invasions underlie changes in taxonomic and phylogenetic patterns of biotic homogenization. By increasing our understanding of the roles of abundance and functional traits in invasions, our work is advancing ecological theory and will inform management decisions.

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