@article{pfadenhauer_nelson_laginhas_bradley_2022, title={Remember your roots: Biogeographic properties of plants' native habitats can inform invasive plant risk assessments}, ISSN={["1472-4642"]}, DOI={10.1111/ddi.13639}, abstractNote={Abstract Aim Reducing the effects of invasive plants is best accomplished by predicting which species will invade and preventing their introduction. To do this, risk assessments rely on a variety of plant traits and biogeographic properties to predict potential invasiveness. However, the relative importance of these traits and properties is unknown. Determining which biogeographic properties contribute the most to predicting invasiveness could improve the accuracy and reduce the time needed to complete future risk assessments. Here, we provide a comprehensive analysis and ranking of the biogeographic properties that best differentiate invasive and noninvasive plant species. Location Conterminous United States. Methods We compiled county‐level distributions of 10,721 vascular plant species native to the conterminous United States of which 884 were established elsewhere and 131 were invasive elsewhere. For each species, we used native distribution data to calculate biogeographic properties, including range size, human modification and abiotic niche breadth. We assessed the ability of biogeographic properties to predict whether each species was invasive outside of the United States using random forest classification models. Results Variables that represent the breadth of a species' native range, including the ranges of soil textures, ranges of soil fertility and total geographic area, are strong predictors of plant invasiveness. Models that included these variables correctly classified 86% of invasive species and 62% of noninvasive species. Variables representing resource availability and disturbance regime were not useful for distinguishing between established and invasive species. Main conclusions Focusing on niche breadth properties could improve the accuracy of risk assessments and reduce the effort spent compiling information with lower predictive power. The importance of niche breadth in this analysis supports previous findings that broad physiological tolerance enables survival and reproduction in numerous environments, thereby increasing the likelihood of invasion.}, journal={DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS}, author={Pfadenhauer, William G. and Nelson, Michael F. and Laginhas, Brit B. and Bradley, Bethany A.}, year={2022}, month={Oct} }
 @article{laginhas_fertakos_bradley_2022, title={We don't know what we're missing: Evidence of a vastly undersampled invasive plant pool}, ISSN={["1939-5582"]}, DOI={10.1002/eap.2776}, abstractNote={Abstract Invasive plants are a prominent threat to ecosystems and economies worldwide. Knowing the identity of invasive plants is critical for preventing their introduction and spread. Yet several lines of evidence, including spatial and taxonomic biases in reporting and the ongoing emergence of new invasives, suggest that we are missing basic information about the identity of invasive plants. Using a database of invasive plants reported in the peer‐reviewed literature between 1959 and 2020, we examined trends in the accumulation of new invasive plants over time and estimated the size of the current pool of invasive plants both continentally and globally. The number of new invasive plants continues to increase exponentially over time, showing no sign of saturation, even in the best studied regions. Moreover, a sample‐size based rarefaction‐extrapolation curve of reported taxa suggests that what is documented in the current literature (3008 taxa) only captures 64% of the likely number of invasive plants globally (4721 taxa ± 132 SE). These estimates varied continentally; less than half of invasive plant taxa have likely been identified in Oceania and Central and South Americas. Studies that included multiple invasive plants (e.g., floristic studies) were much more efficient at adding new taxa to our global understanding of what is invasive (identifying 4.2 times more new taxa than single‐taxon studies). With more potential invaders arriving every day, this analysis highlights a critical gap in our knowledge of the current invasive plant pool. Expanding invasion science to better encompass understudied geographic areas and increasing the numbers of floristic surveys would greatly improve our ability to accurately and efficiently identify what taxa are invasive. Preventing invasive plant introductions is incumbent upon knowing the identity of invasive plants. Thus, large knowledge gaps remain in invasion ecology that hinder efforts to proactively prevent and manage invasive plants.}, journal={ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS}, author={Laginhas, Brittany B. and Fertakos, Matthew E. and Bradley, Bethany A.}, year={2022}, month={Dec} }