Project information
Functional traits and phylogeny as determinants of invasion success in European plant communities

Invasion processes are driven by an interplay between the characteristics of the invading species and the invaded community, but the interactions that facilitate or hinder the progression of alien species through the stages of invasion are highly context-dependent and still poorly understood. In this project, we will 1) investigate functional and phylogenetic differences between native and alien plants across Europe to elucidate how they integrate into native communities and what makes them invasive, and 2) examine how these differences vary over long environmental gradients and among different habitat types. To this end, we will create a European database of alien plants distinguishing and harmonizing their invasion status in different regions. We will focus on different scales of species integration, including regional habitat species pools and local plant communities in which individual species interact directly. We will also investigate how the observed differences translate to invasion levels and develop predictions of invasion risk across Europe.