Why are non-native plants successful? Consistently fast economic traits and novel origin jointly explain abundance across US ecoregions
June 24, 2025
- Are non-native plants abundant because they are non-native, and have advantages over native plants, or because they possess ‘fast’ resource strategies, and have advantages in disturbed environments? This question is central to invasion biology but remains unanswered.
- We quantified the relative importance of resource strategy and biogeographic origin in 69 441 plots across the conterminous United States containing 11 280 plant species.
- Non-native species had faster economic traits than native species in most plant communities (77%, 86% and 82% of plots for leaf nitrogen concentration, specific leaf area, and leaf dry matter content). Non-native species also had distinct patterns of abundance, but these were not explained by their fast traits. Compared with functionally similar native species, non-native species were (1) more abundant in plains and deserts, indicating the importance of biogeographic origin, and less abundant in forested ecoregions, (2) were more abundant where co-occurring species had fast traits, for example due to disturbance, and (3) showed weaker signals of local environmental filtering.
- These results clarify the nature of plant invasion: Although non-native plants have consistently fast economic traits, other novel characteristics and processes likely explain their abundance and, therefore, impacts.
Citation Information
| Publication Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Title | Why are non-native plants successful? Consistently fast economic traits and novel origin jointly explain abundance across US ecoregions |
| DOI | 10.1111/nph.70307 |
| Authors | Dana Blumenthal, Jeffrey Diez, Ian Pearse, Helen Sofaer, Cascade Sorte, Dave Barnett, Evelyn Beaury, Bethany Bradley, Jeff Corbin, Jeffrey Dukes, Regan Early, Ines Ibanez, Daniel Laughlin, Lais Petri, Montserrat Vila |
| Publication Type | Article |
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Series Title | New Phytologist |
| Index ID | 70272646 |
| Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
| USGS Organization | Fort Collins Science Center |