Project Detail

Central European flora as a source of worldwide invasions

Name:	Central European flora as a source of worldwide invasions
Researchers:	Pyšek Petr (researcher)
Provider:	GA ČR
Realization from:	2003
Realization to:	2005
Summary:	The project is aimed at obtaining information about invasion of Central European flora to other parts of the World. Traditional approaches searching for species attributes as determinants of invasiveness have been based so far on analyses of alien florasof target areas; sets of alien species are compared with native flora of a given region. Such studies are limited by an important constraint because they work with unknown source pool of invading species. Hence, they necessarily confuse biologicalcharacters of invading species with circumstances associated with dispersal (i.e. the effect of vector and the distance they must overcome to reach the target area). The present approach is based on the source area; the null hypothesis is that eachspecies was given (in geographical terms) the same chance to be moved by humans outside its natural range. The differences among species in invasive success around the globe will be therefore attributable to their biological and ecological features.