The ecology of biological invasions: past, present and future - Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects - page 6

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the invasion process. Under this model, biological invasions are
characterized by a series of consecutive stages through which a particular species or individual may
pass through. Transition between particular stages may be promoted (+) or inhibited (-) by the
hypotheses identified at each transition (acronyms). See Table 1 for hypothesis definitions. Note that
the neutral community dynamics (NCD) hypothesis is absent from the figure because under NCD
models, species that transit each stage are random selections of the previous stages.
taxonomic approach, that is, they compare characteristics of established
invaders with either (1) introduced species that fail to establish persistent, self-
perpetuating populations, (2) species from the same source region (usually
congeners or confamiliars), (3) species from the global pool, (4) species native
to the invaded community [40], or (5) established invaders at other stages of
the invasion process (e.g., NIS with widespread versus restricted ranges).
These taxonomic comparisons constitute a disparate array of studies. On the
one hand, some studies compare the distribution of correlated traits across
individual species [41], and on the other, some use phylogenetic information