Impacts of plant invasions: the neglected role of community-ecosystem feedbacks

Invasive alien plants are increasingly altering plant communities and ecosystem functioning. Importantly, the structure of the native vegetation influences functioning, which in turn affects plant growth and the assembly of plant communities. Thus community-ecosystem feedbacks lead to indirect invasion impacts through cascading effects, altering community resilience to invasion and future trajectories under global change. Yet, indirect invasion impacts are still largely unrecognized and poorly understood.
Here I propose a project to dissect the feedbacks modulating alien plant impacts in the highly invaded herbaceous communities of the French Mediterranean. I will quantify the relative importance and pathways of indirect impacts through experimental manipulations and use trait-based simulation modeling for generalizing this understanding across different species, spatio-temporal scales and global-change scenarios. By shedding light on the neglected role of community-ecosystem feedbacks and quantifying their relevance for invasion outcomes, my project paves the way for better anticipating when and where invasions will represent a threat.