Title: Global Urban Biological Invasion Compendium: Synthesizing Global Data to Understand Urban Biodiversity

Abstract: Urban areas are major entry points for non-native plants and shape global invasion dynamics. To facilitate global analyses of urban plant invasion, we developed the Global Urban Biological Invasions Compendium (GUBIC), which includes records of 8,140 non-native vascular plant species across 553 cities in 61 countries. Using GUBIC, we identified the most widespread non-native species and found that 302 occur on all six inhabited continents, with cities outside Europe and Asia showing more homogeneous species pools and greater susceptibility to recent invasions. We also examined how urban native and non-native species occupy global plant trait space. They differed along axes of plant structure and leaf economics, and these differences varied with climate. Non-native urban species were more often herbaceous and showed more acquisitive strategies in wetter and colder regions, while structural differences increased in warmer climates. Our results reveal global patterns in the distribution, origins, and traits of non-native urban plants and show how GUBIC can guide efforts to sustain biodiverse and resilient urban ecosystems. 

Speaker Bios:

Benjamin Baiser is an associate professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida. He is a community ecologist who studies a wide range of ecosystems, from the Everglades to pitcher plant food webs, and works across diverse taxa ranging from microbes to sharks.

Daijiang Li is an assistant professor in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin -Madison. He is a quantitative ecologist interested in how global changes have and will affect ecological communities.

In-person location: SEEC S228 (Sievers room).

Zoom option available.