Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

The role of phylogenetic relatedness on alien plant success depends on the stage of invasion

Nature Plants volume 8, pages 906–914 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis predicts successful alien invaders to be distantly related to native species, whereas his pre-adaptation hypothesis predicts the opposite. It has been suggested that depending on the invasion stage (that is, introduction, naturalization and invasiveness), both hypotheses, now known as Darwin’s naturalization conundrum, could hold true. We tested this by analysing whether the likelihood of introduction for cultivation, as well as the subsequent stages of naturalization and spread (that is, becoming invasive) of species alien to Southern Africa are correlated with their phylogenetic distance to the native flora of this region. Although species are more likely to be introduced for cultivation if they are distantly related to the native flora, the probability of subsequent naturalization was higher for species closely related to the native flora. Furthermore, the probability of becoming invasive was higher for naturalized species distantly related to the native flora. These results were consistent across three different metrics of phylogenetic distance. Our study reveals that the relationship between phylogenetic distance to the native flora and the success of an alien species changes from one invasion stage to the other.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Map of Africa and the study regions showing the ten countries of Southern Africa.
Fig. 2: Phylogenetic tree of the global species pool showing all cultivated and naturalized alien species in Southern Africa and the three indices of phylogenetic distance.
Fig. 3: The probabilities of introduction for cultivation and naturalization of alien species in Southern Africa.
Fig. 4: The probability of becoming invasive for naturalized alien plants that have been introduced for cultivation (n = 524) in the country of South Africa in relation to the different phylogenetic distance indices.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The core dataset of this study is available at (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19597093.v1). We also used the GloNAF dataset available at (https://idata.idiv.de/DDM/Data/ShowData/257), The Global Inventory of Floras and Traits database available up on request at (https://gift.uni-goettingen.de/home), The Plant List available at (http://www.theplantlist.org/), and the phylogeny of Smith and Brown (2018) available at (https://github.com/FePhyFoFum/big_seed_plant_trees).

References

  1. Richardson, D. M. et al. Naturalization and invasion of alien plants: concepts and definitions. Divers. Distrib. 6, 93–107 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. van Kleunen, M. et al. Global exchange and accumulation of non-native plants. Nature 525, 100–103 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Capinha, C., Essl, F., Seebens, H., Moser, D. & Pereira, H. M. The dispersal of alien species redefines biogeography in the Anthropocene. Science 348, 1248–1251 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Vilà, M. & Hulme, P. E. in Impact of Biological Invasions on Ecosystem Services Vol. 12 Invading Nature – Springer Series in Invasion Ecology (eds Vilà, M. & Hulme, P. E.) 1–14 (Springer, 2017).

  5. Pyšek, P. et al. A global assessment of invasive plant impacts on resident species, communities and ecosystems: the interaction of impact measures, invading species’ traits and environment. Glob. Chang. Biol. 18, 1725–1737 (2012).

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Pyšek, P. et al. Scientists’ warning on invasive alien species. Biol. Rev. 95, 1511–1534 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Bacher, S. et al. Socio-economic impact classification of alien taxa (SEICAT). Methods Ecol. Evol. 9, 159–168 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Seebens, H. et al. No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide. Nat. Commun. 8, 14435 (2017).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Seebens, H. et al. Projecting the continental accumulation of alien species through to 2050. Glob. Chang. Biol. 27, 970–982 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Kriticos, D. J., Sutherst, R. W., Brown, J. R., Adkins, S. W. & Maywald, G. F. Climate change and the potential distribution of an invasive alien plant: Acacia nilotica ssp. indica in Australia. J. Appl. Ecol. 40, 111–124 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Thuiller, W., Richardson, D. M. & Midgley, G. F. in Biological Invasions (ed. Nentwig, W.) 197–211 (Springer, 2007).

  12. Hobbs, R. J. in Invasive Species in a Changing World (eds Mooney, H. A. & Hobbs, R. J.) 55–64 (Island Press, 2000).

  13. Seebens, H. et al. Global trade will accelerate plant invasions in emerging economies under climate change. Glob. Chang. Biol. 21, 4128–4140 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Razanajatovo, M. et al. Plants capable of selfing are more likely to become naturalized. Nat. Commun. 7, 13313 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Bucharova, A. & van Kleunen, M. Introduction history and species characteristics partly explain naturalization success of North American woody species in Europe. J. Ecol. 97, 230–238 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ordonez, A., Wright, I. J. & Olff, H. Functional differences between native and alien species: a global-scale comparison. Funct. Ecol. 24, 1353–1361 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. van Kleunen, M., Weber, E. & Fischer, M. A meta-analysis of trait differences between invasive and non-invasive plant species. Ecol. Lett. 13, 235–245 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. van Kleunen, M., Dawson, W. & Maurel, N. Characteristics of successful alien plants. Mol. Ecol. 24, 1954–1968 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Essl, F. et al. Drivers of the relative richness of naturalized and invasive plant species on Earth. AoB Plants 11, plz051 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Winkler, D. E., Gremer, J. R., Chapin, K. J., Kao, M. & Huxman, T. E. Rapid alignment of functional trait variation with locality across the invaded range of Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii). Am. J. Bot. 105, 1188–1197 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Divíšek, J. et al. Similarity of introduced plant species to native ones facilitates naturalization, but differences enhance invasion success. Nat. Commun. 9, 4631 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  22. Banerjee, A. K., Prajapati, J., Bhowmick, A. R., Huang, Y. & Mukherjee, A. Different factors influence naturalization and invasion processes – a case study of Indian alien flora provides management insights. J. Environ. Manag. 294, 113054 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ni, M. et al. Invasion success and impacts depend on different characteristics in non-native plants. Divers. Distrib. 27, 1194–1207 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Fristoe, T. S. et al. Dimensions of invasiveness: links between local abundance, geographic range size, and habitat breadth in Europe’s alien and native floras. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2021173118 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  25. Omer, A. et al. Characteristics of the naturalized flora of Southern Africa largely reflect the non-random introduction of alien species for cultivation. Ecography 44, 1812–1825 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Pyšek, P. et al. Naturalization of central European plants in North America: species traits, habitats, propagule pressure, residence time. Ecology 96, 762–774 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Omer, A., Kordofani, M., Gibreel, H. H., Pyšek, P. & van Kleunen, M. The alien flora of Sudan and South Sudan: taxonomic and biogeographical composition. Biol. Invasions 23, 2033–2045 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Duncan, R. P. & Williams, P. A. Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis challenged. Nature 417, 608–609 (2002).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Daehler, C. C. Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis revisited. Am. Nat. 158, 324–330 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Pyšek, P. Is there a taxonomic pattern to plant invasions? Oikos 82, 282–294 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Tan, J., Pu, Z., Ryberg, W. A. & Jiang, L. Resident–invader phylogenetic relatedness, not resident phylogenetic diversity, controls community invasibility. Am. Nat. 186, 59–71 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Thuiller, W. et al. Resolving Darwin’s naturalization conundrum: a quest for evidence. Divers. Distrib. 16, 461–475 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Loiola, P. P. et al. Invaders among locals: alien species decrease phylogenetic and functional diversity while increasing dissimilarity among native community members. J. Ecol. 106, 2230–2241 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Lososová, Z. et al. Alien plants invade more phylogenetically clustered community types and cause even stronger clustering. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 24, 786–794 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Marx, H. E., Giblin, D. E., Dunwiddie, P. W. & Tank, D. C. Deconstructing Darwin’s naturalization conundrum in the San Juan Islands using community phylogenetics and functional traits. Divers. Distrib. 22, 318–331 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Darwin, C. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (John Murray, 1859).

  37. Procheş, Ş., Wilson, J. R. U., Richardson, D. M. & Rejmánek, M. Searching for phylogenetic pattern in biological invasions. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 17, 5–10 (2008).

    Google Scholar 

  38. Diez, J. M., Sullivan, J. J., Hulme, P. E., Edwards, G. & Duncan, R. P. Darwin’s naturalization conundrum: dissecting taxonomic patterns of species invasions. Ecol. Lett. 11, 674–681 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Cadotte, M. W., Campbell, S. E., Li, S. P., Sodhi, D. S. & Mandrak, N. E. Preadaptation and naturalization of nonnative species: Darwin’s two fundamental insights into species invasion. Annu Rev. Plant Biol. 69, 661–684 (2018).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. van Kleunen, M., Bossdorf, O. & Dawson, W. The ecology and evolution of alien plants. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 49, 25–47 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Park, D. S., Feng, X., Maitner, B. S., Ernst, K. C. & Enquist, B. J. Darwin’s naturalization conundrum can be explained by spatial scale. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 10904–10910 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  42. Diez, J. M. et al. Learning from failures: testing broad taxonomic hypotheses about plant naturalization. Ecol. Lett. 12, 1174–1183 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Malecore, E. M., Dawson, W., Kempel, A., Müller, G. & van Kleunen, M. Nonlinear effects of phylogenetic distance on early-stage establishment of experimentally introduced plants in grassland communities. J. Ecol. 107, 781–793 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Schaefer, H., Hardy, O. J., Silva, L., Barraclough, T. G. & Savolainen, V. Testing Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis in the Azores. Ecol. Lett. 14, 389–396 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Strauss, S. Y., Webb, C. O. & Salamin, N. Exotic taxa less related to native species are more invasive. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 103, 5841–5845 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  46. Li, S.-p. et al. The effects of phylogenetic relatedness on invasion success and impact: deconstructing Darwin’s naturalisation conundrum. Ecol. Lett. 18, 1285–1292 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  47. Pellock, S., Thompson, A., He, K., Mecklin, C. & Yang, J. Validity of Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis relates to the stages of invasion. Community Ecol. 14, 172–179 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Blackburn, T. M. et al. A proposed unified framework for biological invasions. Trends Ecol. Evol. 26, 333–339 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. van Kleunen, M. et al. Economic use of plants is key to their naturalization success. Nat. Commun. 11, 3201 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  50. Broennimann, O. et al. Distance to native climatic niche margins explains establishment success of alien mammals. Nat. Commun. 12, 2353 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  51. Carboni, M. et al. What it takes to invade grassland ecosystems: traits, introduction history and filtering processes. Ecol. Lett. 19, 219–229 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Milbau, A. & Stout, J. C. Factors associated with alien plants transitioning from casual, to naturalized, to invasive. Conserv. Biol. 22, 308–317 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Dawson, W., Burslem, D. F. R. P. & Hulme, P. E. Factors explaining alien plant invasion success in a tropical ecosystem differ at each stage of invasion. J. Ecol. 97, 657–665 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Rejmánek, M. in Invasive Species and Biodiversity Management (eds Schei, P. J. & Vilken, A.) 79–102 (Kluwer Academic, 1998).

  55. Rejmánek, M. A theory of seed plant invasiveness: the first sketch. Biol. Conserv. 78, 171–181 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Maurel, N., Hanspach, J., Kuhn, I., Pysek, P. & van Kleunen, M. Introduction bias affects relationships between the characteristics of ornamental alien plants and their naturalization success. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 25, 1500–1509 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Glen, H. F. Cultivated Plants of Southern Africa: Botanical Names, Common Names, Origins, Literature (National Botanical Institute, 2002).

  58. Reichard, S. H. & White, P. Horticulture as a pathway of invasive plant introductions in the United States. Bioscience 51, 103–113 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Faulkner, K. T., Robertson, M. P., Rouget, M. & Wilson, J. R. U. Understanding and managing the introduction pathways of alien taxa: South Africa as a case study. Biol. Invasions 18, 73–87 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Dodd, A. J., Burgman, M. A., McCarthy, M. A. & Ainsworth, N. The changing patterns of plant naturalization in Australia. Divers. Distrib. 21, 1038–1050 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Lambdon, P.-W. et al. Alien flora of Europe: species diversity, temporal trends, geographical patterns and research needs. Preslia 80, 101–149 (2008).

    Google Scholar 

  62. Bennett, B. M. Naturalising Australian trees in South Africa: climate, exotics and experimentation. J. South. Afr. Stud. 37, 265–280 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Richardson, D. M. et al. in Biological Invasions in South Africa (eds van Wilgen, B. W. et al.) 67–96 (Springer, 2020).

  64. Li, S.-p. et al. Contrasting effects of phylogenetic relatedness on plant invader success in experimental grassland communities. J. Appl. Ecol. 52, 89–99 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  65. Duarte, M., Verdú, M., Cavieres, L. A. & Bustamante, R. O. Plant–plant facilitation increases with reduced phylogenetic relatedness along an elevation gradient. Oikos 130, 248–259 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Verdú, M., Rey, P. J., Alcántara, J. M., Siles, G. & Valiente-Banuet, A. Phylogenetic signatures of facilitation and competition in successional communities. J. Ecol. 97, 1171–1180 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Valiente-Banuet, A. & Verdu, M. Plant facilitation and phylogenetics. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 44, 347–366 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Anacker, B. L. & Strauss, S. Y. Ecological similarity is related to phylogenetic distance between species in a cross-niche field transplant experiment. Ecology 97, 1807–1818 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  69. Dostál, P. Plant competitive interactions and invasiveness: searching for the effects of phylogenetic relatedness and origin on competition intensity. Am. Nat. 177, 655–667 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  70. Levin, S. C., Crandall, R. M., Pokoski, T., Stein, C. & Knight, T. M. Phylogenetic and functional distinctiveness explain alien plant population responses to competition. Proc. R. Soc. B 287, 20201070 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  71. Williams, E. W., Zeldin, J., Semski, W. R., Hipp, A. L. & Larkin, D. J. Phylogenetic distance and resource availability mediate direction and strength of plant interactions in a competition experiment. Oecologia 197, 459–469 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  72. Bezeng, S. B., Davies, J. T., Yessoufou, K., Maurin, O. & Van der Bank, M. Revisiting Darwin’s naturalization conundrum: explaining invasion success of non-native trees and shrubs in Southern Africa. J. Ecol. 103, 871–879 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Trotta, L. B., Siders, Z. A., Sessa, E. B. & Baiser, B. The role of phylogenetic scale in Darwin’s naturalization conundrum in the critically imperilled pine rockland ecosystem. Divers. Distrib. 27, 618–631 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Sol, D. et al. A test of Darwin’s naturalization conundrum in birds reveals enhanced invasion success in the presence of close relatives. Ecol. Lett. 25, 661–672 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  75. Smith, S. A. & Brown, J. W. Constructing a broadly inclusive seed plant phylogeny. Am. J. Bot. 105, 302–314 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  76. Henderson, L. Comparisons of invasive plants in Southern Africa originating from southern temperate, northern temperate and tropical regions. Bothalia 36, 201–222 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Cayuela, L., Stein, A. & Oksanen, J. Taxonstand: Taxonomic Standardization of Plant Species Names. R package version 2.2. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=Taxonstand (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, 2019).

  78. Weigelt, P., König, C. & Kreft, H. GIFT – A Global Inventory of Floras and Traits for macroecology and biogeography. J. Biogeogr. 47, 16–43 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. van Kleunen, M. et al. The Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database. Ecology 100, e02542 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  80. Zengeya, T. A. & Wilson, J. R. (eds) The Status of Biological Invasions and Their Management in South Africa in 2019 (South African National Biodiversity Institute and DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology, 2021).

  81. Revell, L. J. phytools: an R package for phylogenetic comparative biology (and other things). Methods Ecol. Evol. 3, 217–223 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing v.3.6.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2019).

  83. Zuur, A. F., Ieno, E. N., Walker, N. J., Saveliev, A. A. & Smith, G. M. Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R Vol. 574 (Springer, 2009).

  84. Schielzeth, H. Simple means to improve the interpretability of regression coefficients. Methods Ecol. Evol. 1, 103–113 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  85. Nagelkerke, N. J. D. A note on a general definition of the coefficient of determination. Biometrika 78, 691–692 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  86. rcompanion: Functions to support extension education program evaluation v. 2.4.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2021).

  87. Tung Ho, L. S. & Ané, C. A linear-time algorithm for Gaussian and non-Gaussian trait evolution models. Syst. Biol. 63, 397–408 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

A.O. thanks the Ministry of Higher Education of Sudan and the University of Konstanz for funding, and the International Max Planck Research School for Quantitative Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution for support. M.v.K. thanks the German Research Foundation DFG for funding (grants 264740629 and 432253815). M.R. thanks the DFG for funding (grant RA 3009/1-1). P.P. and J.P. were supported by EXPRO grant no. 19-28807X (Czech Science Foundation) and long-term research development project RVO 67985939 (Czech Academy of Sciences). F.E. appreciates funding from the Austrian Science Foundation FWF (grant I 3757-B29). We thank C. Gommel, K. Mamonova, V. Pasqualetto and B. Rüter for help with data extraction, and L. Henderson for providing lists of naturalized species for South Africa.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Ali Omer, Trevor Fristoe, Qiang Yang, Mialy Razanajatovo & Mark van Kleunen

  2. Department of Forest Management, University of Khartoum, North Khartoum, Sudan

    Ali Omer

  3. Institute of Landscape and Plant Ecology (320a), University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany

    Mialy Razanajatovo

  4. Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Goettingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Patrick Weigelt & Holger Kreft

  5. Campus-Institut Data Science, Göttingen, Germany

    Patrick Weigelt

  6. Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (CBL), University of Goettingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Patrick Weigelt & Holger Kreft

  7. Department of Biosciences, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Wayne Dawson

  8. Division of Biodiversity Dynamics and Conservation, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Stefan Dullinger

  9. BioInvasions, Global Change, Macroecology-Group, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Franz Essl

  10. Department of Invasion Ecology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Botany, Průhonice, Czech Republic

    Jan Pergl & Petr Pyšek

  11. Department of Ecology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Petr Pyšek

  12. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China

    Mark van Kleunen

Authors
  1. Ali Omer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Trevor Fristoe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Qiang Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Mialy Razanajatovo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Patrick Weigelt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Holger Kreft
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Wayne Dawson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Stefan Dullinger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Franz Essl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Jan Pergl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Petr Pyšek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Mark van Kleunen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

A.O. and M.v.K. conceived and desidned the study. A.O., Q.Y. and M.v.K. compiled data used in this study. A.O. led the analysing with major inputs from M.v.K. and further inputs from P.P., S.D., T.F. and Q.Y. A.O. led the writing with major inputs from M.v.K. and further inputs from T.F., Q.Y., M.R., P.W., H.K., W.D., S.D., F.E., J.P. and P.P.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ali Omer.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Plants thanks Richard Duncan and Shaopeng Li for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and Tables 1–5.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Omer, A., Fristoe, T., Yang, Q. et al. The role of phylogenetic relatedness on alien plant success depends on the stage of invasion. Nat. Plants 8, 906–914 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01216-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01216-9

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing