Tree invasions dataset: a comparative test of the dominant hypotheses and functional traits

Recently, research on invasive trees has dramatically increased, enabling the assess- ment of general trends in tree invasion. Analysing 90 studies dealing with 45 invasive tree species, we conducted a quantitative review and a meta-analysis to estimate the relevance of eight leading hypotheses for explaining tree invasions.

We also tested whether species functional traits (growth rate, density/cover, germination, biomass and survival) equally promote tree invasiveness. Overall, our results suggest that several hypotheses, linked to invasibility or invasive- ness, are pertinent to explain tree invasions. Further- more, more than one hypothesis has been supported for a given species, which indicates that multiple factors lead to the success of invasive tree species.