Influences of environment, human activity, and climate on the invasion of Ageratina adenophora (Spreng.) in Southwest China

With economic and social globalization, invasive alien species have significantly threatened local ecological security. Identifying the invasive mechanisms of invasive alien species can aid in preventing species invasions and protecting local ecological and economic security. As a globally invasive plant, Ageratina adenophora (Asteraceae) has spread to many parts of the world and had a seriously impacted the ecology and economy of its invaded areas. Using observational data and Landsat OLI images in an arid valley region in southwest China, this study examined how climate, human activity and environmental factors influence the invasion of A. adenophora and its underlying mechanism. Our results showed that the invasion abundance of A. adenophora was significantly affected by environmental factors (the relative importance was 87.2%), but was less influenced by human activity and climate factors (the relative importance was 2% and 10.8%, respectively). The A. adenophora abundance significantly decreased with aspect, community canopy density, shrub layer coverage, herb layer coverage, Simpson diversity index of shrub and herb layers, the shortest distance to residential areas and temperature seasonality, whereas it increased with soil moisture, temperature annual range, precipitation of wettest month and precipitation of driest month. We conclude that biotic competition is the most influential factor in the invasion of this plant in the arid valley regions. Our results are of great significance for invasion prevention and forest conservation and management in southwest China. Our work emphasized that optimizing the community structure, such as by increasing canopy and shrub coverage and species biodiversity, may help control and mitigate the A. adenophora invasion in southwest China.