Explore the vast range of titles available.

The evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA) hypothesis and the novel weapons hypothesis (NWH) are two non-mutually exclusive mechanisms for exotic plant invasions, but few studies have simultaneously tested these hypotheses. Here we aimed to integrate them in the context of Chromolaena odorata invasion. We conducted two common garden experiments in order to test the EICA hypothesis, and two laboratory experiments in order to test the NWH. In common conditions, C. odorata plants from the nonnative range were better competitors but not larger than plants from the native range, either with or without the experimental manipulation of consumers. Chromolaena odorata plants from the nonnative range were more poorly defended against aboveground herbivores but better defended against soilborne enemies. Chromolaena odorata plants from the nonnative range produced more odoratin (Eupatorium) (a unique compound of C. odorata with both allelopathic and defensive activities) and elicited stronger allelopathic effects on species native to China, the nonnative range of the invader, than on natives of Mexico, the native range of the invader. Our results suggest that invasive plants may evolve increased competitive ability after being introduced by increasing the production of novel allelochemicals, potentially in response to naïve competitors and new enemy regimes.

Species introductions of anthropogenic origins are a major aspect of rapid ecological change globally. Research on biological invasions has generated a large literature on many different aspects of this phenomenon. Here, we describe and categorize some aspects of this literature, to better understand what has been studied and what we know, mapping well‐studied areas and important gaps. To do so, we employ the techniques of systematic reviewing widely adopted in other scientific disciplines, to further the use of approaches in reviewing the literature that are as scientific, repeatable, and transparent as those employed in a primary study. We identified 2398 relevant studies in a field synopsis of the biological invasions literature. A majority of these studies (58%) were concerned with hypotheses for causes of biological invasions, while studies on impacts of invasions were the next most common (32% of the publications). We examined 1537 papers in greater detail in a systematic review. Superior competitive abilities of invaders, environmental disturbance, and invaded community species richness were the most common hypotheses examined. Most studies examined only a single hypothesis. Almost half of the papers were field observational studies. Studies of terrestrial invasions dominate the literature, with most of these concerning plant invasions. The focus of the literature overall is uneven, with important gaps in areas of theoretical and practical importance. We employ the techniques of systematic reviewing and field synopses, widely adopted in other scientific disciplines, to describe and categorize a substantial portion of the literature on biological invasions, to better understand what has been studied and what we know, mapping well‐studied areas and important gaps. Among other findings, we report that studies of terrestrial plant invasions dominate the literature, and we identify important gaps in areas of theoretical and practical importance.

Some invasive plant species rapidly evolve greater size and/or competitive ability in their nonnative ranges. However, it is not well known whether these traits transfer back to the native range, or instead represent genotype-by-environment interactions where traits are context specific to communities in the new range where the evolution occurred. Insight into transferability vs. context specificity can be tested using experiments performed with individuals from populations from the native and nonnative ranges of exotic invasive species. Using a widespread invasive plant species in Europe, Solidago gigantea, we established reciprocal common garden experiments in the native range (Montana, North America; n = 4) and the nonnative range (Hungary, Europe; n = 4) to assess differences in size, vegetative shoot number, and herbivory between populations from the native and nonnative ranges. In a greenhouse experiment, we also tested whether the inherent competitive ability of genotypes from 15 native and 15 invasive populations differed when pitted against 11 common native North American competitors. In common gardens, plants from both ranges considered together produced five times more biomass, grew four times taller, and developed five times more rhizomes in the nonnative range garden compared to the native range garden. The interaction between plant origin and the common garden location was highly significant, with plants from Hungary performing better than plants from Montana when grown in Hungary, and plants from Montana performing better than plants from Hungary when grown in Montana. In the greenhouse, there were no differences in the competitive effects and responses of S. gigantea plants from the two ranges when grown with North American natives. Our results suggest that S. gigantea might have undergone rapid evolution for greater performance abroad, but if so, this response does not translate to greater performance at home.

Non-native organisms are an abundant component of almost all global ecosystems. A prominent framework to explain the success of non-native plants is the evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA) hypothesis. EICA predicts that plants escape from co-evolved herbivores after introduction into a non-native habitat. Assuming limited resources, a relaxation in selection pressures for resistance traits against the co-evolved specialist herbivores allows plants to allocate increased resources to traits related to fitness and/or competitive ability. Despite the prominence of the EICA hypothesis in the literature, empirical evidence has been mixed. We conducted a meta-analysis on 30 studies that focused on genetic-based trait variation and the trade-off between resistance traits and fitness to assess support for the EICA hypothesis. We found general support for EICA across studies. Performance of herbivores was higher on non-native plant populations than on native populations of the same species. Fitness trait values were higher in non-native populations, relative to native, and we found evidence for trade-offs between herbivore performance and plant fitness traits. Support for EICA was strongest when we focused on direct measurements of herbivore performance, and weakest when we assessed resistance traits, highlighting the complex and often unknown relationship between resistance traits and particular herbivores in many plant–herbivore systems.

Ecological explanations for the success and persistence of invasive species vastly outnumber evolutionary hypotheses, yet evolution is a fundamental process in the success of any species. The Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability (EICA) hypothesis (Blossey and Nötzold 1995) proposes that evolutionary change in response to release from coevolved herbivores is responsible for the success of many invasive plant species. Studies that evaluate this hypothesis have used different approaches to test whether invasive populations allocate fewer resources to defense and more to growth and competitive ability than do source populations, with mixed results. We conducted a meta‐analysis of experimental tests of evolutionary change in the context of EICA. In contrast to previous reviews, there was no support across invasive species for EICA's predictions regarding defense or competitive ability, although invasive populations were more productive than conspecific native populations under noncompetitive conditions. We found broad support for genetically based changes in defense and competitive plant traits after introduction into new ranges, but not in the manner suggested by EICA. This review suggests that evolution occurs as a result of plant introduction and population expansion in invasive plant species, and may contribute to the invasiveness and persistence of some introduced species. We conducted a meta‐analysis of defense and competitive traits of invasive plant species to assess support for the Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability (EICA) hypothesis. There is no general trend across species of evolutionary reductions in defense, and evolutionary enhancement of competitive traits occured only for vegetative growth traits, not for fitness‐related traits. However, there is broad support for evolutionary changes not consistent with EICA in defensive traits and competitive traits across invasive populations of these plant species.

It has long been hypothesised that introduced species can evolve to become better competitors, which in turn will enable some of them to become invasive. The evolution of increased competitive ability hypothesis (EICA) gives a possible answer for why some introduced plants become invasive by stating that they can escape natural coevolved enemies (pests, pathogens and herbivores) in their new environment, thus allowing them to shift resource allocation from producing expensive chemical defences, towards a higher growth rate and competitive ability. In order to test if there is evidence for increased competitive ability in introduced populations, we examined the performance of three Rumex species (R. obtusifolius, R. crispus and R. conglomeratus, Polygonaceae) from their native (United Kingdom) and introduced ranges (New Zealand), when grown alone and in competition with a conspecific from the same or a different provenance. Based on the predictions of EICA, we hypothesised that plants from the introduced provenance would: (i) have a faster growth rate and a larger biomass at harvest; and (ii) would perform better in competition with a conspecific from the native provenance than one from the introduced provenance. Intraspecific competition reduced biomass by as much as 50%. However, contrary to expectations, we found no difference between the performance of plants from native and introduced provenances when grown in direct competition with each other. Plant performance when grown with a conspecific from the same provenance was similar to performance when paired with one from a different provenance, showing that there was no provenance effect. These results were consistent for all three Rumex species. Our findings contradict the predictions of the EICA hypothesis suggesting that other factors are needed to explain the success of Rumex species in New Zealand.

A suite of plant traits is thought to make weed populations highly invasive, including vigorous growth and reproduction, superior competitive ability, and high dispersal ability. Using a breeding design and a common garden experiment, we tested whether such an “invasion syndrome” has evolved in an invasive range of Solidago altissima, and whether the evolution is likely to be genetically constrained. We found an overall shift in invasive phenotypes between native North American and invasive Japanese populations. The invasive populations were taller and produced more leaves, suggesting a superior ability to exploit limited resources. The populations also produced more allelopathic compounds that can suppress competitor growth. Finally, invasive populations produced more seeds, which are smaller and are released from a greater height, indicating a potential for superior dispersal ability than the native populations. Quantitative genetics analyses found a large amount of additive genetic variation in most focal traits across native and invasive populations, with no systematic differences in its magnitude between the ranges. Genetic covariances among three traits representing invasion strategies (leaf mass, polyacetylene concentration and seed size) were small. The R metric, which measures the effect of genetic covariances on the rate of adaptation, indicated that the covariance neither constrains nor accelerates concerted evolution of these traits. The results suggest that the invasion syndrome in S. altissima has evolved in the novel range due to ample additive genetic variation, and relatively free from genetic trade‐offs.

The ‘Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability (EICA)’ hypothesis predicts the evolution of plant invasiveness in introduced ranges when plants escape from their natural enemies. So far, the EICA hypothesis has been tested by comparing plant vigor from native and invasive populations, but these studies are confounded by among-population differences in additional environmental factors and/or founder effects. We tested the major prediction of EICA by comparing the competitive ability (CA) of Solidago altissima plants originating from artificial selection plots in which we manipulated directly the exposure to above-ground herbivores. In a common garden experiment, we found an increase in inter-specific, but not intra-specific, CA in clones from herbivore exclusion plots relative to control plots. The evolutionary increase in inter-specific CA coincided with the increased production of polyacetylenes, whose major constituent was allelopathic against a heterospecific competitor, Poa pratensis, but not against conspecifics. Our results provide direct evidence that release from herbivory alone can lead to an evolutionary increase in inter-specific CA, which is likely to be mediated by the increased production of allelopathic compounds in S. altissima.

1 Most theory and empirical research on exotic invasions is based on the assumption that problematic exotics are much more abundant in the regions where they invade than in the regions where they are native. However, the overwhelming majority of studies on exotic plants have been conducted solely within the introduced range. With few exceptions, ecologists know surprisingly little about the abundance, interaction strengths and ecosystems impacts of even the best-studied exotics in their native range. 2 We argue that taking a biogeographical approach is key to understanding exotic plant invasions. On a descriptive level, unambiguous quantification of distributions and abundances of exotics in native and introduced ranges are crucial. Experiments conducted at a biogeographical scale are also necessary to elucidate the mechanisms that enable highly successful exotics to occur at substantially higher abundance in their introduced vs. native communities. 3 We summarize the leading hypotheses for exotic plant success. We assert that tests of these major hypotheses for invasions (the natural enemies, evolution of invasiveness, empty niche and novel weapons hypotheses) require comparative biogeographical approaches. 4 In addition to focusing on comparative work in the native and introduced range, we also suggest other approaches that could yield important insight into processes that influence exotic success. 5 Increased understanding of invasions has the potential to provide unique insight into fundamental ecological theory, including that on individualistic-holistic structure, the role of trophic interactions in population regulation, and the importance of co-evolution in communities.

PurposeTo determine the prevalence of different extracranial internal carotid artery (EICA) variations in CT angiography (CTA) of the neck and its predisposing factors.MethodsIn this retrospective study from 2021 to 2023 conducted in the radiology department of Shafa Hospital, Kerman, Iran, all patients who had undergone neck CTA were included. Expert radiologists blindly examined each CTA image for the following: EICA variations—coiling, kinking, straight morphology, and tortuosity—and the distance between the internal carotid artery and the apex of the epiglottis and the C2 lower margin.ResultsOf the 106 patients, the mean age was 55.9 ± 16.9 years. 64.2% were men, and 35.8% were women. Considering each patient’s bilateral anatomy, the reported 70.28% (149/212) frequency of EICA variations of all arteries. Tortuosity, kinking, and coiling variation were found in 61.8%, 4.2%, and 4.2% of arteries, respectively. Also, 54.72%, 1.89%, and 0.94% of the participants had bilateral tortuosity, kinking, and coiling, respectively. There was a significant relationship between the prevalence of EICA variations and female sex, age, and hypertension.ConclusionThe frequency of EICA variations in arteries and patients was 70.28% and 73.58%, respectively. Tortuosity was the most common variation. Female sex, old age, and hypertension were significant risk factors for EICA variations.