Aim. Many plant species native to Europe have naturalized worldwide. We tested whether the phylogenetic structure of the species pools of European habitats is related to the proportion of species from each habitat that have naturalized outside Europe (habitat’s donor role) and whether the donated species are more phylogenetically related to each other than expected by chance.

Location. Europe (native range), the rest of the World (invaded range).

Time period. Last c. 100 years.

Major taxa studied. Angiospermae.

Methods. We selected 33 habitats in Europe and analyzed their species pools, including 9,636 plant species, of which 2,293 have naturalized outside Europe. We assessed the phylogenetic structure of each habitat as the difference between the observed and expected mean pairwise phylogenetic distance (MPD) for (a) the whole species pool and (b) subgroups of species that have naturalized outside Europe and those that have not. We used generalized linear models to test for the effects of the phylogenetic structure and the level of human influence on the habitats’ donor role.

Results. Habitats strongly to moderately influenced by humans often showed phylogenetically clustered species pools. Within the clustered species pools, those species that have naturalized outside Europe showed a random phylogenetic structure. Species pools of less human-influenced natural habitats varied from phylogenetically clustered to overdispersed, with donated naturalized species also often showing random patterns within the species pools. Donor roles in both habitat groups increased with increasing MPD within habitats.

Main conclusions. European human-influenced habitats donate closely related species that often naturalize in disturbed habitats outside their native range. Natural habitats donate species from different lineages with various ecological strategies that allow them to succeed in different habitats in the invaded range. However, in most cases, the naturalized species donated are phylogenetically random subsets of the donor habitats’ species pools.

Aim. Many plant species native to Europe have naturalized worldwide. We tested whether the phylogenetic structure of the species pools of European habitats is related to the proportion of species from each habitat that have naturalized outside Europe (habitat’s donor role) and whether the donated species are more phylogenetically related to each other than expected by chance.

Location. Europe (native range), the rest of the World (invaded range).

Time period. Last c. 100 years.

Major taxa studied. Angiospermae.

Methods. We selected 33 habitats in Europe and analyzed their species pools, including 9,636 plant species, of which 2,293 have naturalized outside Europe. We assessed the phylogenetic structure of each habitat as the difference between the observed and expected mean pairwise phylogenetic distance (MPD) for (a) the whole species pool and (b) subgroups of species that have naturalized outside Europe and those that have not. We used generalized linear models to test for the effects of the phylogenetic structure and the level of human influence on the habitats’ donor role.

Results. Habitats strongly to moderately influenced by humans often showed phylogenetically clustered species pools. Within the clustered species pools, those species that have naturalized outside Europe showed a random phylogenetic structure. Species pools of less human-influenced natural habitats varied from phylogenetically clustered to overdispersed, with donated naturalized species also often showing random patterns within the species pools. Donor roles in both habitat groups increased with increasing MPD within habitats.

Main conclusions. European human-influenced habitats donate closely related species that often naturalize in disturbed habitats outside their native range. Natural habitats donate species from different lineages with various ecological strategies that allow them to succeed in different habitats in the invaded range. However, in most cases, the naturalized species donated are phylogenetically random subsets of the donor habitats’ species pools.

We derived data on European vegetated habitats from EuroVegChecklist (Mucina et al., 2016), which categorizes European vegetation into vegetation classes, each supplemented by a list of typical/diagnostic plant species. 

We merged vegetation classes and their respective species lists into 33 broader categories of European donor habitats.

We merged all subspecies and varieties contained in the source species lists to the species level. 

We standardized the species nomenclature following The Plant List (TPL, v1.1, http://www.theplantlist.org) using the package ‘Taxonstand’, v1.0 (Cayuela, Granzow-de la Cerda, Albuquerque, Golicher, 2012) in R v4.0.3 (R Core Team, 2020). 

We restricted our data set to angiosperm species that are native to Europe and have a known association to European habitats.

Within the species list, and using the GloNAF database (v1.1; van Kleunen, Dawson, Essl, et al., 2015; Pyšek et al., 2017), we identified European native plant species that have naturalized outside Europe. 

European native species that have naturalized outside Europe are called native naturalized species, and those that have not naturalized outside Europe are called native non-naturalized species.

For further explanation please read README.txt