A number of hypotheses have been suggested to explain why invasive exotic plants dramatically increase their abundance upon transport to a new range. The novel weapons hypothesis argues that phytotoxins secreted by roots of an exotic plant are more effective against naïve resident competitors in the range being invaded. The common reed Phragmites australis has a diverse population structure inc...

Long-term ecological studies are critical for providing key insights in ecology, environmental change, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. However, island fire ecology is poorly understood. No previous studies are available that analyze vegetative changes in burned and unburned dry forest remnants on Wa'ahila Ridge, Hawai'i. This study investigates vegetation succession f...

Differences in plant and herbivore community assemblages between exotic and native ranges may select for different levels of plant traits in invasive and native populations of plant species. Little is currently known of how herbivores may mediate competitive and facilitative interactions between invasive and native populations of plant species and their plant neighbors. Here, we conducted a com...

Differences in morphological or ecological traits expressed by exotic species between their native and non-native ranges are often interpreted as evidence for adaptation to new conditions in the non-native ranges. In turn this adaptation is often hypothesized to contribute to the successful invasion of these species. There is good evidence for rapid evolution by many exotic invasives, but the e...

Strong competition from invasive plant species often leads to declines in abundances and may, in certain cases, cause localized extinctions of native plant species. Nevertheless, studies have shown that certain populations of native plant species can co-exist with invasive plant species,suggesting the possibility of adaptive evolutionary responses of those populations to the invasive plants. Em...

Invasive plants may compete with native plants by increasing the pressure of native consumers, a mechanism known as "apparent competition." Apparent competition can be as strong as or stronger than direct competition, but the role of apparent competition has rarely been examined in biological invasions. We used four years of demographic data and seed-removal experiments to determine if introduc...

BACKGROUND The study of plants and fungi sold in open-air markets is an important part of ethnobotanical enquiry. Only few such studies were carried out in Europe. METHODS Four of the largest open-air markets of south-eastern Poland were visited regularly, and the plants sold in them were recorded between 2013 and 2015. The aim of the study was to record native and/or wild species sold in the...

INTRODUCTION The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) is an organization exercising delegated authority from 11 federally recognized Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. These tribes retain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in the territories ceded to the United States through various treaties. The degradation of native ecosystems by invasive species pos...

Weeds As Examples Weeds provide good examples to clarify what is meant by an invasive species because most people have a concept of what constitutes a " weed. " Invasion can be thought of as a process that in our example, a plant must go through to become a successful, yet harmful invader. Several barriers must be overcome for a plant to be considered an invasive weed. Invasive weeds are invasi...

Nonnative ungulates can alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems. Feral pigs in particular pose a substantial threat to native plant communities throughout their global range. Hawaiian forests are exceptionally vulnerable to feral pig activity because native vegetation evolved in the absence of large mammalian herbivores. A common approach for conserving and restoring forests in Ha...