When alien plants integrate into an existing ecosystem and successfully spread, in rare cases, it can contribute to the increased uniqueness of the regional flora. However, much more often, this process—known as naturalization—leads to a homogenization of regional floras and thus to a net loss of global floristic uniqueness. Super-invaders, which are highly effective at colonizing new territory and displacing native species, are causing the flora in even distant regions with clear geographic separation to become increasingly similar. These are the findings of an international research team led by biologists from Konstanz that were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Click here for original story, Global loss of floristic uniqueness due to spread of alien plants
Source: Phys.org