The introduction of exotic species by humans is causing severe changes to the world´s ecosystems. In particular, the introduction of invasive species (those with a larger capacity to occupy the space and monopolize the resources than native species) currently represents a major threat to biodiversity (second only to habitat loss) and imposes great economic costs to our society. Unfortunately, the impact of biological invasion is likely to worsen in the decades to come, particularly when combined to other processes of global change. In the current project, we aim at identifying the factors that determine the risk of biological invasions in vegetal communities, paying attention to both the determinants of invasiveness of exotic species and their modulation by elements that determine the invasibility of receptive ecosystems. Specifically, we propose to test these hypotheses:

(1) The invasiveness of a species is determined by certain biological traits, such as its dispersal capacity, life history, competitive ability, or the presence of anti-herbivore defences.
(2) Invasive species have high levels of phenotypic plasticity, which allows them to grow in a broad variety of environments despite their limited genetic variability (usually associated to the initial colonization events).
RASINV is part of the coordinated project RINVE led by A. Traveset.

Team: F. Valladares, A. Delgado, O.Godoy, S. Matesanz, M. Maestro, G. Montserrat, A. Traveset, O. Atkin