Invasive angiosperms show consistent patterns in traits and phylogeny

Background/Question/Methods

Predicting invasiveness in plants as a function of specific traits has proved elusive. However, the construction of phylogenetic super-trees and the advent of large comparative data sets increasingly enable the investigation of broad trait patterns. We obtained data on native range size, seed mass, chromosome counts and indices of ploidy from on-line databases, and used these data as predictors in logistic regression models of four categories of invaders (escapes from cultivation, agricultural weeds, natural area invaders, and serious pests) among the 25,000 introduced angiosperms of Australia.

Results/Conclusions

We show that these traits are sufficient to discriminate a set of broad trait syndromes corresponding to each category. Moreover, we found that genome multiplication is a key predictor of the likelihood of range size, whether a species will successfully invade, and its impact on receiving communities and ecosystems.