Rapid upwards spread of non-native plants in mountains across continents

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

  • Evelin Iseli
  • Chelsea Chisholm
  • Jonathan Lenoir
  • Tim Seipel
  • Agustina Barros
  • Anna L. Hargreaves
  • Paul Kardol
  • Jonas J. Lembrechts
  • Keith McDougall
  • Irfan Rashid
  • Sabine B. Rumpf
  • José Ramón Arévalo
  • Lohengrin Cavieres
  • Curtis Daehler
  • Pervaiz A. Dar
  • Bryan Endress
  • Gabi Jakobs
  • Alejandra Jiménez
  • Christoph Küffer
  • Maritza Mihoc
  • Ann Milbau
  • John W. Morgan
  • Bridgett J. Naylor
  • Aníbal Pauchard
  • Amanda Ratier Backes
  • Zafar A. Reshi
  • Lisa J. Rew
  • Damiano Righetti
  • James M. Shannon
  • Graciela Valencia
  • Neville Walsh
  • Genevieve T. Wright
  • Jake M. Alexander
High-elevation ecosystems are among the few ecosystems worldwide that are not yet heavily invaded by non-native plants. This is expected to change as species expand their range limits upwards to fill their climatic niches and respond to ongoing anthropogenic disturbances. Yet, whether and how quickly these changes are happening has only been assessed in a few isolated cases. Starting in 2007, we conducted repeated surveys of non-native plant distributions along mountain roads in 11 regions from 5 continents. We show that over a 5- to 10-year period, the number of non-native species increased on average by approximately 16% per decade across regions. The direction and magnitude of upper range limit shifts depended on elevation across all regions. Supported by a null-model approach accounting for range changes expected by chance alone, we found greater than expected upward shifts at lower/mid elevations in at least seven regions. After accounting for elevation dependence, significant average upward shifts were detected in a further three regions (revealing evidence for upward shifts in 10 of 11 regions). Together, our results show that mountain environments are becoming increasingly exposed to biological invasions, emphasizing the need to monitor and prevent potential biosecurity issues emerging in high-elevation ecosystems.
Titel in ÜbersetzungRasche Ausbreitung nicht heimischer Pflanzen in Gebirgen über Kontinente hinweg nach oben
OriginalspracheEnglisch
ZeitschriftNature Ecology and Evolution
Jahrgang7
Ausgabenummer3
Seiten (von - bis)405-413
Anzahl der Seiten9
ISSN2397-334X
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 03.2023
Extern publiziertJa

Bibliographische Notiz

Funding Information:
This research was funded through the 2019–2020 BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivClim ERA-Net COFUND programme (project ‘RangeX’) and with the funding organizations Innovation Fund Denmark, Department of Science and Innovation Republic of South Africa, the Research Council of Norway, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning and the German Research Foundation. S.H. and A.R.B. acknowledge the support of iDiv funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG–FZT 118, 202548816). A.L.H. was supported by an NSERC Discovery grant. P.K. acknowledges funding from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) (grant no. 2015-04214) and J.J.L. received funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (grant no. 12P1819N). L.C., A.J. and A.P. acknowledge funding from FONDECYT 1171005, 180205 and 12111971 and ANID/BASAL FB210006. D.R. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant no. P500PB_203241. J.M.A. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 678841) and from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 20BD21_193809). We thank the Plant Ecology group from ETH Zurich for comments on the manuscript.

Funding Information:
This research was funded through the 2019–2020 BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivClim ERA-Net COFUND programme (project ‘RangeX’) and with the funding organizations Innovation Fund Denmark, Department of Science and Innovation Republic of South Africa, the Research Council of Norway, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning and the German Research Foundation. S.H. and A.R.B. acknowledge the support of iDiv funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG–FZT 118, 202548816). A.L.H. was supported by an NSERC Discovery grant. P.K. acknowledges funding from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) (grant no. 2015-04214) and J.J.L. received funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (grant no. 12P1819N). L.C., A.J. and A.P. acknowledge funding from FONDECYT 1171005, 180205 and 12111971 and ANID/BASAL FB210006. D.R. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant no. P500PB_203241. J.M.A. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 678841) and from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 20BD21_193809). We thank the Plant Ecology group from ETH Zurich for comments on the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).

DOI