Abstract Detail

Ecology

Park, Daniel [1], Feng, Xiao [2], Maitner, Brian [3].

Scale dependence in Darwin’s Naturalization Conundrum.

Darwin proposed two seemingly contradictory hypotheses regarding factors influencing the outcome of biological invasions. He initially posited that non-native species closely related to native indigenous species would be more likely to successfully establish, because they might share adaptations to the local environment. However, based on observations that the majority of naturalized plant species in the United States belonged to non-native genera, he concluded that the lack of competitive exclusion would facilitate the establishment of alien invaders phylogenetically distinct from the native flora, in what has become known as ‘Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis’. To date, no consensus has been reached regarding these opposing hypotheses, and it has been suggested that Darwin’s two opposing hypotheses need not be mutually exclusive. Here, following Darwin, we use the flora of the United States to examine patterns of phylogenetic relatedness between native and non-native taxa across thousands nested locations ranging from one square meter in size to thousands. We demonstrate that patterns of phylogenetic relatedness between native and non-native species can be influenced by spatial and taxonomic scale.

1 - Harvard University, 22 Divinity Avenue, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
2 - University of Arizona, Institute of the Environment, Tucson, AZ, USA
3 - University of Arizona, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tucson, AZ, USA

Keywords:
Invasive species
biological invasions
environmental filtering
Competition
community assembly.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: ECO2, Ecology 2: Invasive Plant Species
Location: Tucson A/Starr Pass
Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2019
Time: 9:15 AM
Number: ECO2005
Abstract ID:1016
Candidate for Awards:None