Plant biodiversity in the face of global change.

Le Roux et al. suggest that documented increases in local plant richness in response to climate change should consider the nature of 'new' species. They find that species responsible for increases in richness in areas that have experienced significant disturbance and climate change are often invasive and/or weedy species.

Elevated carbon dioxide and reduced salinity enhance mangrove seedling establishment in an artificial saltmarsh community.

The global phenomenon of mangrove encroachment into saltmarshes has been observed across five continents. It has been proposed that this encroachment is driven in part by rising atmospheric CO concentration and reduced salinity in saltmarshes resulting from rising sea levels enhancing the establishment success of mangrove seedlings. However, this theory is yet to be empirically tested at the community-level.

Substantial declines in urban tree habitat predicted under climate change.

Globally, local governments are increasing investment in urban greening projects. However, there is little consideration of whether the species being planted will be resilient to climate change. We assessed the distribution of climatically suitable habitat, now and in the future, for 176 tree species native to Australia, commonly planted across Australia's Significant Urban Areas (SUAs) and currently grown by commercial nurseries.

Do invasive alien plants benefit more from global environmental change than native plants?

Invasive alien plant species threaten native biodiversity, disrupt ecosystem functions and can cause large economic damage. Plant invasions have been predicted to further increase under ongoing global environmental change. Numerous case studies have compared the performance of invasive and native plant species in response to global environmental change components (i.

Reductions in native grass biomass associated with drought facilitates the invasion of an exotic grass into a model grassland system.

The invasion success of exotic plant species is often dependent on resource availability. Aspects of climate change such as rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and extreme climatic events will directly and indirectly alter resource availability in ecological communities. Understanding how these climate change-associated changes in resource availability will interact with one another to influence the invasion success of exotic plant species is complex.

Leaf area index drives soil water availability and extreme drought-related mortality under elevated CO2 in a temperate grassland model system.

The magnitude and frequency of climatic extremes, such as drought, are predicted to increase under future climate change conditions. However, little is known about how other factors such as CO2 concentration will modify plant community responses to these extreme climatic events, even though such modifications are highly likely. We asked whether the response of grasslands to repeat extreme drought events is modified by elevated CO2, and if so, what are the underlying mechanisms? We grew grassland mesocosms consisting of 10 co-occurring grass species common to the Cumberland Plain Woodland of western Sydney under ambient and elevated CO2 and subjected them to repeated extreme drought treatments.

Competitive interactions between native and invasive exotic plant species are altered under elevated carbon dioxide.

We hypothesized that the greater competitive ability of invasive exotic plants relative to native plants would increase under elevated CO(2) because they typically have traits that confer the ability for fast growth when resources are not limiting and thus are likely to be more responsive to elevated CO(2). A series of competition experiments under ambient and elevated CO(2) glasshouse conditions were conducted to determine an index of relative competition intensity for 14 native-invasive exotic species-pairs. Traits including specific leaf area, leaf mass ratio, leaf area ratio, relative growth rate, net assimilation rate and root weight ratio were measured.