The Biogeography of Invasive Plants in the Continental United States

入侵植物是人类引入世界新地方的物种，在那里它们不仅生存下来，而且在新的栖息地茁壮成长。尽管对许多入侵植物个体进行了广泛的研究，但对入侵植物作为一个更广泛的群体的生物地理学的基本理解仍然有限。这项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已确定但尚未发现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原生范围内独特的生物地理模式的基本知识；这些知识对于预测入侵风险至关重要。该项目将提供关于地理如何影响新物种在入侵范围内向生态系统扩散的影响因素的新见解，包括确定未来入侵风险的“热点”。研究人员将为国家创建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入侵植物“观察名单”，这些植物可能在未来潜在的气候条件下变得有问题。该项目还将通过研究生培训和扩大本科生参与研究来促进科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的教育。入侵物种已被千年生态系统评估确定为全球生态系统的五大威胁之一。尽管这个问题很突出，但对于这些物种的不同之处，特别是为什么入侵物种是入侵物种，缺乏基本的科学理解。通过生态学研究来解决这个问题已经付出了相当大的努力，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几个研究得很好的物种，这阻碍了对入侵模式的更广泛的理解。此外，将入侵物种和已建立的物种混为一谈，将人类引入的影响与生物学对入侵地理分布的影响混为一谈，从而阻碍了对入侵特征模式的识别。该项目将重点评估两组核心问题的答案的有效性：(1)对于美国大陆的非原生植物，非原生植物在已建立的植物和入侵植物中的地理位置有何不同？(2)目前美国各地建立和入侵风险的地理位置是什么，以及它们可能如何随着气候条件的变化而变化？调查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，对当前和预测的未来气候条件下所有1000种入侵植物的潜在分布进行建模。这一分析将使创建一个空间上明确的美国大陆未来入侵风险的“热点”模型成为可能。

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.