Abiotic and biotic contexts shape the effect of disturbance on non‐native plant invasion

Abstract

Making predictions about when and where a given mechanism of invasion will be weak or strong is crucial for the effective management of non-native species. Despite the importance of disturbance on invasion, our understanding of how variation in abiotic and/or biotic conditions may modify the disturbance-invasion relationship is scarce. Here, we aimed to evaluate how abiotic (soil type) and biotic (tree and shrub cover) contexts affect the disturbance-invasion relationship in disturbed and nearby non-disturbed communities in the semi-arid open forest of central Argentina (ca. 36° S) using field sampling. We found that abiotic context modulated non-native species success in disturbed communities, whereas both abiotic and biotic context modulated success in nearby non-disturbed communities. These findings suggest that the plant invasion-disturbance relationship is context-dependent. Our results hint at the possibility that the significance of disturbance in predicting invasion might diminish as the importance of abiotic filters increases.