Alien species pool influences levels of habitat invasion
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
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| Description | Habitat types occurring within the same region differ in the number and proportion of alien plant species they harbour, but the same habitat types in different regions are invaded to the similar extent. Observed patterns of levels of invasion indicate underlying factors that operate independently of large geographical distances, including habitat invasibility and colonization pressure. However, habitat-specific regional pools of alien species adapted to recipient habitat types can also affect habitat levels of invasion. Traits of alien species are influenced by adaptations to original (donor) habitat types in their native range. Thus if those habitat types differ in their donor role, regional species pools consisting of ecologically compatible aliens also differ and observed levels of invasion of analogous recipient habitat types should depend on those differences. We compared habitat’s levels of invasion with the contribution of each habitat type to the regional alien species pool among 27 habitat types occurring in two regions of temperate North America and Central Europe. We found that the more of its native species a habitat type contributed as aliens, the more of them established in analogous recipient habitat type on the other continent as a result of the direct species-pool effect. We also found that the proportion of alien species in a habitat type increased with the proportion of native species that given habitat type donated to the other continent as a result of the reciprocal species-pool effect. |
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