Invasions of Plant Communities--More of the Same, Something Very Different, Or Both?(Report‪)‬

Although invasion biology has been somewhat dissociated from other research on vegetation change, at least a partial rapprochement is underway, and, in any event, it is not evident that understanding of invasions has been retarded by the dissociation. Research on plant invasions has already contributed greatly to recent progress in understanding the determinants of community structure and function, as well as to many other areas of ecology. The rapidly increasing number of communities composed wholly or largely of introduced species would seem to be an ideal probe into questions about the nature of plant communities and the forces molding them, but they have barely been exploited in this regard. Invasion biology has not produced powerful general laws, but neither has community ecology as a whole. This fact does not indicate that they are weak sciences, only that any laws in these fields will probably be local, contingent patterns because of the complexity and idiosyncrasies of biological communities. INTRODUCTION