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Echoes of invasion: Persistent evolutionary, ecological and socioeconomic legacies following invasive plant removal
Journal article   Open access

Echoes of invasion: Persistent evolutionary, ecological and socioeconomic legacies following invasive plant removal

Florencia A Yannelli, Agustina Barros, Priscila Powell, Jane Catford, Jeffrey Corbin, Michele Dechoum, Fanny Dommanget, Alessandra Fidelis, Margherita Gioria, Ben Gooden, …
ARPHA conference abstracts, Vol.9, e201490
2026
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Published (Version of Record) Open Access CC BY V4.0

Abstract

alternative states impacts invasive plants management plant-soil feedbacks restoration ecology
The removal of invasive alien plants is a common practice to passively restore native biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, invasive plants can generate legacy effects: persistent alterations in evolutionary, ecological, and/or socio-economic processes that hinder or prevent recovery after their removal. Management actions themselves can generate and exacerbate legacy effects. Despite increasing awareness, legacies remain under-reported and poorly understood, particularly those related to management actions. Here we propose an expanded definition of legacy effects, and a conceptual framework to identify and analyze the factors influencing their magnitude, persistence in time, and temporal dynamics. We propose classifying legacies as either evolutionary, ecological, or socio-economic according to (i) the mechanisms that generate them, (ii) the level of biological organization affected (species, population, community, or ecosystem), and (iii) the role of management actions in generating, exacerbating, and mitigating persistent impacts. (i) the mechanisms that generate them, (ii) the level of biological organization affected (species, population, community, or ecosystem), and (iii) the role of management actions in generating, exacerbating, and mitigating persistent impacts. Our framework provides a structured approach to predict post-removal dynamics and anticipate constraints on recovery to a desired reference state. We show that recognizing and addressing legacy effects is essential for improving invasive species management and for designing restoration strategies that are context-dependent and robust to long-term ecosystem change.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#15 Life on Land

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