Determinants of plant establishment success in a multispecies introduction experiment with native and alien species.

ABSTRACT: Determinants of plant establishment and invasion are a key issue in ecology and evolution. Although establishment success varies substantially among species, the importance of species traits and extrinsic factors as determinants of establishment in existing communities has remained difficult to prove in observational studies because they can be confounded and mask each other. Therefore, we conducted a large multispecies field experiment to disentangle the relative importance of extrinsic factors vs. species characteristics for the establishment success of plants in grasslands. We introduced 48 alien and 45 native plant species at different seed numbers into multiple grassland sites with or without experimental soil disturbance and related their establishment success to species traits asses

SUBMITTER: Kempel A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3732918 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature