<b>Competitive advantages of alien over native plants: the roles of herbivory, water and phosphorus</b>

The success of alien plants is often ascribed to competitive advantages they have over native plants. In this study, we first categorized the three types of asymmetric competitive advantages, consisting of both intra- and interspecific, and proposed that the hypothesis that the aliens’ competitive advantages were context dependent. And then a greenhouse experiment was conducted to test the effects of three external factors (water, phosphorous and herbivory) on the three above competitive advantages. We indeed found that there were asymmetric competitive advantages for alien plants, and which were also influenced by multiple external factors. All of these could improve our understanding of the mechanism behind invasion success in the context of ongoing climate change.外来入侵植物（alien plants）的成功定植与扩散，常被归因于其相较于本土植物所具备的竞争优势。本研究首先对兼具种内与种间竞争特性的三类非对称竞争优势（asymmetric competitive advantages）进行了分类，并提出了外来植物竞争优势具有情境依赖性（context dependent）的研究假说。随后开展温室栽培实验，探究水分、磷素（phosphorous）与植食作用（herbivory）三类外部因素对上述三类非对称竞争优势的影响。研究结果证实，外来入侵植物确实存在非对称竞争优势，且这类优势同时受到多种外部因素的调控。上述研究成果有助于深化我们在当前气候变化背景下，对植物入侵成功内在机制的认知。