How alien plants establish themselves in the ecological succession of tropical rainforests: an experimental test in New Guinea

Project name in Czech
How alien plants establish themselves in the ecological succession of tropical rainforests: an experimental test in New Guinea
Annotation in Czech
In the face of increasing anthropogenic disturbance, rainforest regeneration is becoming important for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, while coming under increasing pressure from alien biota. We propose novel experiments that manipulate plant-insect food webs in spontaneously developing and artificially established pioneer vegetation. They will test the importance of dispersal limitation, competition, herbivory, and abiotic factors in the establishment of alien species in ecological succession. We will examine two competing hypotheses, namely that [i] alien plants recruited from global species pools possess combinations of species traits not present in the native flora, placing them at the more competitive end of the plant economics spectrum, and [ii] that alien plants benefit from enemy-free space since they tend to be colonized by impoverished, mostly generalist herbivore communities. The study will be conducted in Papua New Guinea, where it will contribute to the conservation of rainforests by indigenous communities and train para-ecologists and students.

R&D category
ZV - Basic research
OECD FORD - main branch
10618 - Ecology
OECD FORD - secondary branch
10616 - Entomology
OECD FORD - another secondary branch
10611 - Plant sciences, botany
CEP - equivalent branches <br>(according to the <a href="http://www.vyzkum.cz/storage/att/E6EF7938F0E854BAE520AC119FB22E8D/Prevodnik_oboru_Frascati.pdf">converter</a>)
EF - Botany<br>EG - Zoology<br>EH - Ecology - communities

Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data delivery code
CEP26-GA0-GA-R
Data delivery date
Apr 30, 2026

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