IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v417y2002i6889d10.1038_417608a.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Darwin's naturalization hypothesis challenged

Author

Listed:
  • Richard P. Duncan

    (Ecology and Entomology Group, Soil
    Lincoln University)

  • Peter A. Williams

    (Landcare Research)

Abstract

Naturalized plants can have a significant ecological and economic impact1, yet they comprise only a fraction of the plant species introduced into new areas by humans2. Darwin proposed3 that introduced plant species will be less likely to establish a self-sustaining wild population in places with congeneric native species because the introduced plants have to compete with their close native relatives, or are more likely to be attacked by native herbivores or pathogens4,5, a theory known as Darwin's naturalization hypothesis6. Here we analyse a complete list of seed-plant species that have been introduced to New Zealand and find that those with congeneric relatives are significantly more, not less, likely to naturalize — perhaps because they share with their native relatives traits that pre-adapt them to their new environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard P. Duncan & Peter A. Williams, 2002. "Darwin's naturalization hypothesis challenged," Nature, Nature, vol. 417(6889), pages 608-609, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:417:y:2002:i:6889:d:10.1038_417608a
    DOI: 10.1038/417608a
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/417608a
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/417608a?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meng Xu & Shao-peng Li & Chunlong Liu & Pablo A. Tedesco & Jaimie T. A. Dick & Miao Fang & Hui Wei & Fandong Yu & Lu Shu & Xuejie Wang & Dangen Gu & Xidong Mu, 2024. "Global freshwater fish invasion linked to the presence of closely related species," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Barnabas H. Daru & T. Jonathan Davies & Charles G. Willis & Emily K. Meineke & Argo Ronk & Martin Zobel & Meelis Pärtel & Alexandre Antonelli & Charles C. Davis, 2021. "Widespread homogenization of plant communities in the Anthropocene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:417:y:2002:i:6889:d:10.1038_417608a. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.