PIF2024 - AGRUPANDO INVASIONES VEGETALES EN MONTAÑAS A NIVEL GLOBAL (PID2023-152653OB-C21)

Over the last 60 years, invasion scientists have been trying to understand which, where and how alien plants become invasive. This information is crucial to tackling alien plant invasions. However, the generalisations formulated to date rarely hold over large scales in terms of space, time, or species, and experts argue that alien plant invasions can only be understood in the specific context in which they occur. This project will contribute to overcome this challenge. Using mountain areas globally as a study system, first, we will collect data on the human and social aspects of plant invasions by using novel culturomic approaches and demonstrate their overwhelming role in driving alien plant invasions in mountain areas. Second, we will collate data on the context, outcomes and management requirements of previous alien plant invasion events in mountain areas and use unsupervised learning models to classify them into invasion syndromes, which are defined as groups of invasions that are similar in terms of alien plant species traits, performance, impacts and management requirements, how they are perceived by society, and what are the characteristics of their natural and recipient ecosystems. Then, we will describe management solutions for each of them. Overall, this project has the potential to revolutionise our ability to predict future invasions and provide managers with a scientifically sound basis for designing alien species management actions.