Predicting invasion success of cultivated naturalized plants in China

Plant invasions pose significant threats to native ecosystems, human health, and global economies. However, the complex and multidimensional nature of factors influencing plant invasions makes it challenging to predict and interpret their invasion success accurately. Using a robust machine learning algorithm, random forest, and an extensive suite of characteristics related to environmental niches, species traits, and propagule pressure, we developed a classification model to predict the invasion success of naturalized cultivated plants in China. Based on the final optimal model, we evaluated the relative importance of individual and grouped variables and their prediction performance. Our study identified key individual variables within each of three groupings: climatic suitability and native range size (environmental niches), phylogenetic distance to the closest native taxon and vegetative propagation mode (species traits), and the number of botanical gardens and provinces where species..., Data compilation
We compiled a checklist of the 735 naturalized plant taxa introduced for cultivation in China, based on the Catalogue of Cultivated Plants in China (Lin, 2018) and The Checklist of the Naturalized Plants in China (Yan et al., 2019). The binomial names of these naturalized taxa were standardized according to The Plant List (TPL, version 1.1; http://www.theplantlist.org) using the R package 'Taxonstand' (Cayuela et al., 2021). Among these naturalized taxa, 435 were classified as non-invasive and 300 as invasive in China, based on information from Hao and Ma (2023). Non-invasive taxa are naturalized taxa that form self-sustaining populations outside cultivation but remain limited in spread. Invasive taxa are naturalized taxa that spread widely, causing economic, social, and ecological damage to the invaded ecosystems. These definitions are consistent with those used by Lin et al. (2021).
To identify the characteristics that could potentially drive the invasion success of n..., , # Data and R code for \"Predicting invasion success of cultivated naturalized plants in China\"

Prepared by Bi-Cheng Dong
19 December 2024

This README file lists and describes the files used for the analyses involved in the manuscript, \"Predicting invasion success of cultivated naturalized plants in China\", by Bi-Cheng Dong, Ran Dong, Qiang Yang, Nicole L. Kinlock, Fei-Hai Yu, and Mark van Kleunen, published in *Journal of Applied Ecology*. Please see the manuscript itself and the Supporting Information for additional details regarding this analysis.

#### Files included

#### Dataset of cultivated naturalized plants in China

* **chklist.invasion2018_20230929_v24.csv**: this dataset is the primary source used in all analyses. Each row represents a seed plant taxon that has been naturalized non-invasive or invasive in China, standardized by The Plant List (TPL). For each taxon, associated data on propagule pressure, environmental niches, and species traits are provided. The CSV file is...