The role of plant-plant facilitation in non-native plant invasions.

Abstract

Biological invasions are one the most important drivers of the current environmental changes generating important biodiversity losses. Although several hypotheses have been proposed to understand the mechanisms underpinning biological invasions, most of them relate to negative interactions among native and invasive species, where the capacity for many invasive species to reduce diversity is often attributed to a greater competitiveness. However, neighbouring species can also show facilitative interactions, where the presence of one species can facilitate another directly by improving environmental conditions or indirectly through negative effects on a third party species. This chapter reviews the scientific literature on plant invasion, seeking examples of where facilitative interactions either among native and non-native plant species or among non-native species were demonstrated. There are several examples of native species that directly facilitate a non-native species, while examples of native species having a negative effect either on a native or a non-native species that compete with a target non-native, generating a net indirect facilitative effect of the native on the target non-native, are less numerous. Direct facilitation among non-native species has been reported as part of the 'invasional meltdown' phenomenon (Chapter 8, this volume). There are cases where non-native species can have a negative effect on a native species that competes with a target non-native, generating a net indirect facilitative effect among the non-natives. Finally, a non-native species can have a direct facilitative effect on native species, which might have important implications in restoration.