Data for: Increasing planting density increases fruit mass and reduces the dispersal ability of a range-expanding invasive plant, Mikania micrantha

Aim: Invasive plants may evolve a suite of distinctive traits during spread in the new range. Among these traits, dispersal ability is an important trait determining the invasion speed of exotic plants. There is evidence that higher dispersal ability is favored at the invasion front, where population density may be low. However, no study has explicitly tested how planting density in a common garden affects the dispersal ability of invasive plants.
Location: Hainan island of China.
Methods: In this study, using 27 populations of an invasive plant, Mikania micrantha, which is expanding its range on Hainan island of China, we examine how three dispersal-related traits (i.e., dispersal ability, fruit mass, and pappus radius) change with distance from invasion centre and field population density, and how planting density in a common garden affects dispersal traits.
Results: Dispersal traits did not change with distance from the invasion centre and field population cover either in the natural..., , , # This is the raw data showing the population information, treatments, and dispersal traits of the 27 *Mikania micrantha* populations.
## Description of the data and file structure
In the first page, data of the common garden experiment are shown. These include block, planting density treatments, pappus radius, fruit mass, and area-mass ratio (AMR). A 'Novalue' cell indicates that the corresponding plants did not set any fruits. In the second page, data in the natural environment are shown. These include pappus radius, fruit mass, and area-mass ratio (AMR). In each page, the population origin (western or eastern), distance from invasion center, field cover, and frequency of field occurance of each of the 27 populations are also shown.