Fern invaders come from all over the family tree, study finds
Pelosi JA, Yañez A, Veldhuisen LN, Dant AJ, Northing PC
Invasive Species
The ferns tucked into your shade border or hanging basket may belong to a group of 93 species already escaping into wild places around the world, and 31 of them are now classed as invasive.
Scientists tallied every fern known to have spread outside its home range and sorted them into three groups: visitors that don't persist, ones that have settled in, and ones that take over. Invasive ferns aren't concentrated in any one branch of the fern family, so relatives can't predict which will cause trouble. Many of them thrive in new places with the same climate they grew up in, and the ones that settle in may have smaller genomes, while the ones that take over may carry extra sets of chromosomes.
Key Findings
The dataset covers 93 non-native fern taxa: 19 casual, 43 naturalized but not invasive, and 31 invasive.
Non-native ferns showed weak or no phylogenetic clustering, and some regions are overrepresented as sources and recipients of introductions.
In well-documented invasive ferns, climatic niches were often conserved between native and introduced ranges but could differ between introductions; naturalized ferns may have smaller genomes and invaders higher ploidy, though both results depend on how cytotypes are treated.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers built the first global list of non-native ferns: 93 species that have escaped into new regions, 31 of them invasive. Ferns that spread don't fall into particular family groups, and many keep the same climate preferences when they move, so gardeners and land managers can't spot risky ferns by relatives alone.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Testing fundamental hypotheses of colonization success in the ferns.
Non-native species are now ubiquitous members of regional floras. The factors that lead to establishment and dominance of non-native species are continuously debated. Fundamental hypotheses about d...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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