Duration of propagule pressure affects non‐native plant species abundances

Abstract

First, future studies of non-native invasions would benefit from including past as well as present propagule pressure. If past propagule pressure is not considered, its effects may be wrongly ascribed to present propagule pressure. Second, the non-native species in this study are widely used in landscaping, and development age reflects the years that landscaping has been present nearby. As xeriscaping becomes more common, streamside woodlands may someday not have the highest non-native species richness: the new drought-tolerant landscaping plants may be better invaders of drier sites than their predecessors.

Modelling presence versus abundance for invasive species risk assessment

“…A central challenge in ecology is understanding the environmental drivers of variation in abundance and predicting patterns of abundance across space and time. For invasive species, a population's abundance underlies its impact on communities and ecosystems (Parker et al., 1999), and the propagule pressure that arises as individuals disperse (De Jong & Fowler, 2018). Like other species, even problematic invaders are rare in most locations where they occur (Hansen et al., 2013) and identifying the subset of locations where an invasive species is likely to become abundant could improve the efficacy of prevention and management efforts (O’Neill et al., 2021).…”