The Biogeography of Invasive Plants in the Continental United States

入侵植物是人类引入世界新地区的物种，它们不仅在新的栖息地生存，而且在新的栖息地茁壮成长。 虽然许多入侵植物个体已被广泛研究，但对入侵植物作为一个更广泛的群体的植物地理学的基本理解仍然有限。 该研究项目将分析和预测入侵植物在美国大陆非本土范围内的地理分布，研究人员将比较入侵物种的地理特征与那些已建立但不知道正在传播或对自然系统产生负面影响的非本土物种的地理特征。 项目成果将加强对入侵植物在其非本土范围内的独特地理模式的基本知识;对预测入侵风险至关重要的知识。 该项目将提供新的见解，了解地理如何影响影响新物种向入侵范围内生态系统扩散的因素，包括确定未来入侵风险的“热点”。 研究人员将为国家建立空间上明确的入侵风险模型，以指导政策和管理，他们还将制定国家级的“观察名单”，列出在未来潜在气候条件下可能出现问题的入侵植物。 该项目还将通过研究生培训和扩大本科生参与研究，为改善科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的教育做出贡献。入侵物种已被千年生态系统评估确定为全球生态系统面临的五大威胁之一。 尽管这个问题很突出，但对于是什么使这些物种与众不同，特别是为什么入侵物种具有入侵性，缺乏基本的科学认识。 通过生态学研究已经做出了相当大的努力来解决这个问题，但相对较少的研究人员专注于了解入侵物种的地理位置。 入侵植物的研究往往偏向于少数研究非常充分的物种，这抑制了更普遍的入侵模式的理解。 此外，将入侵物种和已建立的物种混为一谈，混淆了人类引入的影响和生物学对入侵地理分布的影响，从而阻碍了入侵物种特征模式的识别。 该项目将重点评估两组核心问题答案的有效性：（1）对于美国大陆的非本土植物，非原生范围地理学对于已建立的植物与入侵植物有何不同？(2)美国目前的地理位置和入侵风险是什么，以及它们如何随着气候条件的变化而变化？ 研究人员将使用从博物馆和管理记录中汇编的入侵植物的发生记录，为所有1,000种入侵植物在当前和预测的未来气候条件下的潜在分布建模。 这种分析将有助于建立一个空间上明确的模型，即美国大陆未来入侵风险的“热点”。

Invasive plants are species introduced by humans to new parts of the world where they not only survive but thrive in novel habitats. Although many individual invasive plants have been studied extensively, basic understanding of the biogeography of invasive plants as a broader group remains limited. This research project will analyze and project the geographies of invasive plants in their non-native ranges within the continental U.S. The investigators will compare the geographic traits of invasive species to those of non-native species that are established but are not known to be spreading or negatively affecting natural systems. Project results will enhance fundamental knowledge of unique biogeographical patterns of invasive plants in their non-native range; knowledge that is critical for forecasting invasion risk. The project will provide new insights regarding how geography influences the factors affecting the spread of new species into ecosystems in the invaded range, including identifying "hot spots" of future invasion risk. The investigators will create spatially explicit invasion risk models for the nation to guide policy and management, and they will produce state-level "watch lists" of invasive plants likely to become problematic under potential future climate conditions. The project also will contribute to improved education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields through graduate training and expansion of undergraduate participation in research.Invasive species have been identified as one of five prominent threats to global ecosystems by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Despite the prominence of the problem, there is a paucity of basic scientific understanding regarding what sets these species apart, especially why invasive species are invasive. Considerable effort has gone into addressing this question through ecological studies, but relatively few researchers have focused on understanding the geography of invasive species. Invasive plant research tends to be biased towards a handful of very well-studied species, which inhibits understand of invasion patterns more generally. Furthermore, lumping invasive and established species together conflates the influence of human introduction with the influence of biology on the geographic distributions of invasions, thereby hindering identification of patterns characteristic of invasives. This project will focus on evaluating the validity of answers to two core sets of questions: (1) For non-native plants in the continental U.S., how does non-native range geography differ for plants that are established vs. those that are invasive? (2) What is the current geography of establishment and invasion risk across the U.S., and how might they shift with changing climatic conditions? The investigators will use occurrence records for invasive plants compiled from museum and management records to model potential distribution for all 1,000 invasive plants under current and projected future climate conditions. This analysis will enable creation of a spatially explicit model of "hot spots" of future invasion risk across the continental U.S.