Plant Invasions and Their Impacts Under Global Environmental Change

As one of the major global change factors (GCFs), plant invasions could be influenced by other GCFs, forming complex feedbacks that impact native ecosystems. This review synthesizes current knowledge on how GCFs influence nonnative plant invasions via direct effects on invasiveness and community invasibility, as well as indirect effects operating through mutualists, antagonists, and altered trophic networks. Critical research gaps involve the interactive effects of multiple GCFs (three or more), environmental variability, emerging GCFs, and systemic biases in study systems. Predictive models provide probabilistic, but still decision-relevant, forecasts of invasion risk under global change. Research priorities include multifactor and long-term experiments, explicit consideration of belowground mechanisms and trophic feedbacks, and the reformulation of invasion hypotheses within a global-change framework. These directions are critical not only for understanding nonnative plant invasions but also for managing range-shifting species in an increasingly dynamic world.