Central European plant species from more productive habitats are more invasive at a global scale

Abstract

Aim: Accumulating evidence indicates that species may be pre-adapted for invasionsuccess in new ranges. In the light of increasing global nutrient accumulation,an important candidate pre-adaptation for invasiveness is the ability to grow innutrient-rich habitats. Therefore we tested whether globally invasive species originating from Central Europe have come from more productive rather than lessproductive habitats. A further important candidate pre-adaptation for invasivenessis large niche width. Therefore, we also tested whether species able to grow acrosshabitats with a wider range of productivity are more invasive.Location: Global with respect to invasiveness, and Central European with respect to origin of study species.Methods: We examined whether average habitat productivity and its width acrosshabitats are significant predictors of the success of Central European species asaliens and as weeds elsewhere in the world based on data in the Global Compendium of Weeds. The two habitat productivity measures were derived from nutrient indicator values (after Ellenberg) of accompanying species present in vegetation records of the comprehensive Czech National Phytosociological Database. In theanalyses, we accounted for phylogenetic relatedness among species and for size ofthe native distribution ranges.Results: Species from more productive habitats and with a wider native habitatproductivity niche in Central Europe have higher alien success elsewhere in the world.Weediness of species increased with mean habitat productivity. Niche width was also an important determinant of weediness for species with their main occurrencein nutrient-poor habitats, but not for those from nutrient-rich habitats.Main conclusions: Our results indicate that Central European plant species fromproductive habitats and those species from nutrient-poor habitat with wideproductivity-niche are pre-adapted to become invasive. These results suggest that the world-wide invasion success of many Central European species is likely to have been promoted by the global increase of resource-rich habitats.