Zhaox

Invasive alien plants introduced outside their native ranges by human activities are spreading at unprecedented rates globally, posing significant threats to biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services. Nevertheless, plants invasion driven changes in ‘biodiversity–ecosystem function’ are scantily described in relation to ecosystem multifunctionality, especially in the face of climate change. To this end, climate factors, particularly Mean annual temperature (MAT), are often considered to influence both ecosystem functions and the impacts of plant invasions. However, there exists paucity of empirical evidences on how invasive plants and their interactions with climatic/abiotic variables like temperature affect ecosystem multifunctionality. In this study, we assessed the effects of invasive Xanthium species (Xanthium spinosum L. and Xanthium italicum Moretti) on ecosystem multifunctionality across temperature gradients in northwest China. Further, similar warming effects were assessed on congener indigenous species (Xanthium sibiricum Patr.) for pragmatic comparison.