It is still debated whether alien plants benefit from being mycorrhizal, or if engaging in the symbiosis constrains their establishment and spread in new regions. We analyzed the association between mycorrhizal status of alien plant species in Germany and their invasion success. We compared whether the representation of species with different mycorrhizal status (obligate, facultative, or non-my...

A. Pratap and J. Kumar (eds.), Alien Gene Transfer in Crop Plants, Volume 1: Innovations, Methods and Risk Assessment, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-8585-8_2, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract Wide or distant hybridization has been widely used as an important tool of chromosome manipulation for crop improvement. The chromosome behaviors in F 1 hybrids provide us with the essenti...

Although it has long been acknowledged that many native and alien weeds colonising disturbed habitats share similar attributes, differences associated with biogeographic origin have been recognised for over 50 years [1]. Thompson and Davis [2], however, make the point that where plants are passengers rather than drivers of environmental change, one might expect selection for similar characteris...

Bio-invasion has caused serious ecosystem damage and enormous economic losses in China, and it has been the greatest factor to island bio-diversity reduction. Xiamen, as an important seaport with a relatively high conservation value, is particularly vulnerable to bio-invasion for its typical island ecosystem as well as frequent human-made disturbance. As a result of field surveys, literature re...

At local scales, it has often been found that invasibility decreases with increasing resident plant diversity. However, whether resident community diversity similarly resists invasion by alien versus native species is seldom studied. We examined this issue by invading constructed native plant assemblages that varied in species and functional richness with invasive alien or native Asteraceae spe...

In 1962, Rachel Carson eloquently and convincingly argued that the intensive and widespread use of pesticides was resulting in the pollution of ecosystems, declines in wildlife, and human health problems. These poisons were primarily insecticides used against what she called "an avalanche" of resistant insects. Most people share this concept of insects and other invertebrates as a natural disas...

Alien predators are widely considered to be more harmful to prey populations than native predators. To evaluate this expectation, we conducted a meta-analysis of the responses of vertebrate prey in 45 replicated and 35 unreplicated field experiments in which the population densities of mammalian and avian predators had been manipulated. Our results showed that predator origin (native versus ali...

Tithonia diversifolia, an alien ornamental plant introduced from Central America, has being naturalized in tropical, southern and central sub-tropical regions in the Yunnan Province of China (Wang et al. 2004). In order to evaluate this ominous alien species, our team has carried out a comprehensive study on its current geographical distribution, natural communities, vegetative proliferation an...

Forecasts of emerging zoonoses neglect the threat alien species pose in disease transmission to humans. A review of alien parasites, hosts, and vectors introduced to Europe highlights the wide range of potential public health risks, the need for better surveillance and risk assessment, and major policy gaps in global preparedness.

A major aim in ecology is identifying determinants of invasiveness. We performed a meta-analysis of 117 field or experimental-garden studies that measured pair-wise trait differences of a total of 125 invasive and 196 non-invasive plant species in the invasive range of the invasive species. We tested whether invasiveness is associated with performance-related traits (physiology, leaf-area alloc...