Characteristics of the naturalized flora of Southern Africa largely reflect the non-random introduction of alien species for cultivation

This dataset contains data on the cultivated alien and native flora of
Southern Africa associated with data on geographic origins, growth form,
functional traits, and naturalization status extracted from different data
sources described in Omer, A. et al.
2021. Characteristics of the naturalized flora of Southern Africa
largely reflect the non-random introduction of alien species for
cultivation– Ecography.  doi: 10.1111/ecog.05669.  It is
frequently overlooked, however, that patterns in origin, phylogeny, and
traits of naturalized alien species might largely reflect which species
have been introduced in the first place.
This study quantifies and assesses such introduction
biases by analyzing 5317 plant species introduced for cultivation (i.e.
primarily as ornamental garden plants) in the 10 countries composing
Southern Africa. The main results show that this cultivated alien
flora represents a non-random subset of the global flora and that this
bias at the introduction stage largely contributes to patterns in
geographic origin, phylogenetic composition, and traits of the naturalized
flora of Sothern Africa.