Naturalization of introduced plants is driven by life-form-dependent cultivation biases

Aims:

Most naturalized plants are escapees from cultivation. Inventories of cultivated introduced species thus offer unique, still underutilized, opportunities to assess naturalization drivers of introduced plants. We used a comprehensive inventory of 13,718 introduced species cultivated in China’s botanical gardens to test which species characteristics distinguish the 739 species that have naturalized.

Locations: China.

Methods:

We used generalized linear models to test whether the naturalization of cultivated introduced plants in China is associated with functional traits, propagule pressure, environmental niche, and introduction history. To test direct and indirect effects of those variables and their relative importance in driving naturalization, we used structural equation models.

Results:

We showed that species were more likely to naturalize when they originate from the Americas, are more widely cultivated, and have a longer residence time. Moreover, species were more likely to naturalize if they have a good environmental match, are short-lived herbs, are predominantly propagated from seeds, and, in the case of herbs, are relatively tall compared to other herbs. Part of the latter effects are mediated by how these variables relate to propagule-pressure proxies, and this varies among short-lived herbs, long-lived herbs and woody plants. Main conclusions: Naturalization is partly driven by life-form-dependent cultivation biases.

Methods
Details of the methods are provided in the associated publication.