Evolution of invasion syndrome in invasive goldenrod is not constrained by genetic trade-offs

A suite of plant traits is thought to make weed populations highly invasive, including vigorous growth and reproduction, superior competitive ability, and high dispersal ability. Using a breeding design and a common garden experiment, we tested whether such an “invasion syndrome” has evolved in an invasive range of Solidago altissima, and whether the evolution is likely to be genetically constrained. We found an overall shift in invasive phenotypes between native North American and invasive Japanese populations. The invasive populations were taller and produced more leaves, suggesting a superior ability to exploit limited resources. The populations also produced more allelopathic compounds that can suppress competitor growth. Finally, invasive populations produced more seeds, which are smaller and are released from a greater height, indicating a potential for superior dispersal ability than the native populations. Quantitative genetics analyses found a large amount of additive genetic v..., Study system
The tall goldenrod, Solidago altissima L. (Asteraceae), is a perennial forb native to eastern North America (Werner et al., 1980) and is a dominant species of old fields and disturbed habitats. Solidago altissima was first introduced into Japan in the late 1890s as an ornamental plant but only became widespread across the country since the 1980s (Fukuda, 1982). Current molecular data suggests that invasive Japanese S. altissima populations are likely to be introduced primarily from south-eastern North America (Sakata et al., 2015), which may overlap with the distribution of a putative S. altissima variety,  pluricephala that has also invaded other parts of Asia (Semple et al., 2015). The Japanese populations seem to be founded by multiple introduction events, resulting in similar levels of genetic diversity within a population at neutral markers as in the native populations (Sakata et al., 2015; Uesugi et al., 2020). Moreover, broad-sense genetic variation for herbivore res..., , # Evolution of “invasion syndrome” in invasive goldenrod is not constrained by genetic trade-offs

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n8pk0p34b](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n8pk0p34b)

This dataset contains multivariate phenotypic traits of *Solidago altissima* from its native and invasive ranges measured in a common garden experiment. Plants were sourced from three populations per range, crossed with a partial diallel design, and phenotyped in a common garden. We found evidence of evolutionary increase in multiple traits associated with invasiveness, whose evolution did not seem to be constrained by genetic tradeoffs among traits. 

## Description of the data and file structure

EvolApp_2023_Gmatrix_data.csv contains trait data collected for each of the 1324 individual samples of S. altissima plants. Rows are separated into Type = \"Plant\" or \"seed\". \"Plant\" rows show measurements of all traits for each individual plant, except for \"seed.area\". Because seeds were bulk germinated for each ...