Data and R code_update.zip

Plant invasion has long been recognized as an important driver of species loss in ecological communities. However, projecting the impacts of non-native species on the coexistence potential of multi-species communities after invasion, as well as whether all species within the invaded communities will persist under random environmental perturbations remains a pressing challenge. Here, we conducted a pairwise experiment with five native and five non-native species to estimate the intra- and interspecific interaction coefficients using the Ricker model. We then evaluated how non-native species affect the persistence of invaded communities at both community and species levels through a structural approach. Specifically, we used interaction structures among species within a community to characterize its feasibility domain, which indicates the probability that all species can coexist simultaneously. We assessed this for all possible communities with varying numbers of non-native species, and calculated the exclusion probability for individual species. At the community level, we found that the community persistence generally showed a decreasing trend after non-native species invasion. Additionally, the feasibility domain became more asymmetric as more native species were replaced by non-native ones at most community richness levels, thereby reducing the long-term viability of those communities. At the species level, the non-native species will be excluded first in most communities if a strong perturbation took place. Our findings highlight the important role of clarifying the complex interaction patterns among non-native and native species in shaping community persistence, as well as the impact of non-native species on the potential of community persistence varies depending on the species composition of invaded communities. This provides valuable insights for invasion management, indicating that strategies should consider local environments and species compositions to optimize resource allocation, including human, material and financial resources.