Invaders break assembly rules to beat the natives: How cheatgrass cheats

Understanding how some introduced plants achieve invasive status while most simply become naturalized is a fundamental question in invasion ecology. Traditional approaches comparing native and introduced plants have linked ruderal traits such as annual life history, high fecundity, and rapid growth rates to invasiveness. However, they do not explain why other introduced species bearing similar traits fail to become invasive, possibly because generic comparisons ignore local processes that drive community assembly. Herein, we contrasted native and introduced annuals in the context of local successional processes to elucidate how introduced annual bromes like cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) overtake perennial grasslands in the intermountain western United States. We created disturbed plots and seeded them first with annuals representing natives, naturalized species, or invasive bromes. We then seeded plots with native perennial community dominants to examine how the different annuals influen..., Data for this study derive from a main field experiment, an embedded seed fate experiment, and two greenhouse experiments. In the field, we primarily measured response variables that assayed plant community development and associated changes in soil conditions. The greenhouse experiments involved the same focal annual and perennial species used in the field experiments, but with a focus on testing for plant-soil feedbacks. Please see README information (included in this archive and within data files) in addition to the published article for detailed methods., , # Invaders break assembly rules to beat the natives: How cheatgrass cheats

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9ghx3fft6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9ghx3fft6)

## Description of the data and file structure

These data assay plant community succession via field and greenhouse experiments to test whether processes diverge between communities initiated with invasive annual bromes or native and naturalized annuals. In the files described further below, note that cases where no data were collected are indicated with a period (\".\")

### Files and variables

#### File: FIELD\_DATA\_FOR\_DRYAD.xlsx

**Description:** 

DATA FROM MAIN FIELD EXPERIMENT AND EMBEDDED SEED FATE EXPERIMENT

##### Variables

* **FIELD EXP TAB**

YEAR: SAMPLING YEAR, 2016-2019

PLOT: EXPERIMENTAL UNIT UNIQUELY LABELED

SPECIES: FOUR LETTER CODE REPRESENTING FOCAL ANNUAL SPECIES ORIGINALLY SEEDED INTO PLOT (SEE FIG. S1 FOR KEY)

TREAT: ANNUAL SPECIES CATEGORY REPRESENTED BY FOCAL SEEDED SPECIES, WITH CNTL=UNSEEDE...