Are plant communities on the Canary Islands resistant to plant invasion?

Abstract

AbstractOceanic islands are renowned for their unique flora and high levels of endemism. Native island plants, however, are imperilled by non‐native species that can become invasive by outcompeting natives. The threat of native island assemblages generally increases with isolation and the number of endemics featured, but also with human‐associated disturbance and land use. Based on this, the Canary Island native plant systems should be highly threatened by invasives, similar to other oceanic islands globally. However, Canarian native plant systems are only weakly infiltrated and are rarely directly threatened by invasive plants. Further, highly disturbed areas, usually among the first colonized by invasives on islands, are recolonized here by natives. Based on this, we postulate four hypotheses (climatic filter, well‐preservation status, human legacy and permanent colonization) for explaining this unusual behaviour of plant systems on the Canary Islands, providing an opportunity to understand the drivers and processes behind invasion into plant communities on islands.