Life Sciences Commons^™

Performance And Reproduction Of An Exotic Invader Across Temperate Forest Gradients, Robert J. Warren Ii, Volker Bahn, Timothy D. Kramer, Yaya Tang, Mark A. Bradford

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Widespread colonization by invasive species often obscures their underlying niche requirements. A robust inference into habitat requirements demands direct measures of invasive species performance linked with associated environmental conditions. In the context of general ecological theory, we investigated the niche requirements of Microstegium vimineum, an invasive grass in the U.S. that overruns native vegetation in forest understories. We examined M. vimineum’s performance and reproduction as a function of environmental drivers across forested and unforested habitats along a 100-km regional and climatic gradient in the southeastern U.S. from the southern Appalachian Mountains to the Georgia piedmont. We then measured M. vimineum …