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Compiling data on floral introductions and European colonial history of regions worldwide, the authors find that compositional similarity of floras is higher than expected among regions once occupied by the same empire and similarity increases with the length of time the region was occupied by that empire.

The spread of non-native species is likely to be compounded by further climate change and land-use intensification. Here the authors assess the potential distribution of 9,701 naturalized non-native plant species at a 10 × 10-km grid resolution and project shifts under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways.

An analysis across multiple species groups and different facets of stand-level heterogeneity in temperate forests from Central Europe reveals that heterogeneity–diversity relationships are not generalizable and predictable as modelling approaches suggest, varying even between ecologically similar species groups.

Plant traits drive ecosystem dynamics yet are challenging to map globally due to sparse measurements. Here, the authors combine crowdsourced biodiversity observations with Earth observation data to accurately map 31 plant traits at 1 km² resolution.

Across a global dataset of over 11,000 naturalized alien plant species, the authors find that species are likely to naturalize both in regions with climates and floras similar to those in their native ranges, and in regions with a lower diversity or stronger human impact than in their native range.

How changes in species’ native occupancy over time relate to global naturalization success remains unclear. Here, the authors show that species with both high occupancy decades ago and increasing native occupancy ever since are more likely to become naturalized elsewhere.

Humans have altered plant biogeography by introducing species from one region to another, but an analysis of how naturalized plant species affect the uniqueness of regional floras around the world was missing. This study presents an analysis using data from native and naturalized alien floras in 658 regions, finding strong taxonomic and phylogenetic floristic homogenization overall.

Analysing the distributions of >99% of the world’s seed plant flora, the authors find evidence supporting the evolutionary imbalance hypothesis, with species originating from large, biodiverse regions being more successful at naturalizing beyond their native ranges.

How tree diversity effects on ecosystem functioning vary along climatic gradients is unclear. Here, analysing data from 15 experimental forest sites, the authors show that tree growth responses to neighbourhood species diversity are stronger in wetter climates but are unaffected by interannual climatic variation within sites.

Plants with the capability to reproduce easily without mates and pollinators could have an advantage when colonizing new territory. Here, Razanajatovoet al. use a global database to infer that flowering plants capable of selfing have become naturalized in a larger number of regions than those that must outcross.

Plant invasion and naturalisation threaten native biodiversity. Here, the authors conduct a global multi-factor and multi-stage analysis, showing that genome size and economic factors influence plant invasion and naturalisation.

This modelling study integrates comprehensive regional plant inventories, environmental conditions and palaeogeographical reconstructions to assess the relative roles of environmental filtering and dispersal barriers in shaping global seed plant diversity, demonstrating that environmental filtering has a persistent effect on species distribution patterns across evolutionary timescales.

The largest plant family, Asteraceae, forms an iconic component of many island floras. Here, the authors conduct a macroecological review, showing that Asteraceae have a truly global distribution on islands and are the most diverse plant family on oceanic islands.

This paper examines how the relationship between native and alien plants changes the nature of an invasion, finding that the stages, and ultimate success, of an invasion are intrinsically linked to the phylogenetic relationship.

This study relates 88,000 elevation range sizes of vascular plants in 44 mountains to short-term and long-term temperature variation. The authors finding of decreasing elevation range sizes with greater diurnal temperature range supports a novel biodiversity hypothesis and indicates increased extinction risk of continental species.

Species-rich plant communities often have higher productivity than monocultures. Here, the authors analyse biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments in grasslands and forests and find that the biodiversity effects on community productivity strengthen over time thanks to shifts in contributions of species with different resource acquisition traits.

Understanding why certain alien species become naturalized can shed light on biological invasion patterns. In this global analysis on thousands of taxa, van Kleunen and colleagues show that plant species of economic use are more likely to become naturalized, and that this underlies geographic patterns and phylogenetic signals in naturalization

Functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity are expected to be positively correlated. Here the authors show that the covariation between these metrics in vascular plant communities around the world is often either inconsistent or negative.

A standardized checklist of all known vascular plants shows the distribution of island native and endemic species, identifies their conservation status and highlights the need for actions to conserve them.

A large-scale, five-year study in Indonesia finds that enriching oil palm-dominated landscapes with patches of trees bolsters biodiversity and ecosystem functioning without impairing oil palm yields but should not replace forest protection.

On the oceanic island of Tenerife, dispersal, speciation and persistence drive the diversity and distribution of plant functional traits.

Alien species could be either more or less likely to become naturalized where closely related species occur. This study reveals a global latitudinal pattern whereby successfully naturalized alien plants are more closely related to natives at higher latitudes, reinforced by human modification of the environment.

Small-scale farmers in Southeast Asia are increasingly turning to monocultures of oil palm and rubber to maximize income. Clough and colleagues demonstrate that this land-use change in Indonesia comes at a cost to a wide array of ecosystem functions and biodiversity.

Anthropogenic habitat modification is considered a driver of non-native species establishment. Here, the authors quantify the occurrence of non-native species in local assemblages of vascular plants, ants, spiders, birds and mammals, finding generally greater presence and frequency under disturbed land-use types.

A full factorial experiment in a state-owned industrial oil palm plantation in Indonesia evaluates whether reduced management via reduced fertilization rates and mechanical weeding can decrease the negative impacts on ecosystem functions and biodiversity while maintaining profitability of the plantation.

Resolving ecological-economic trade-offs is a challenge in agriculture. Here, Wurz et al. find that in Malagasy vanilla agroforests, vanilla yield is generally not related to tree, herbaceous plant, bird, amphibian, reptile and ant biodiversity, creating opportunities for conservation outside protected areas.

Combining ecophysiological growth models of >135,000 vascular plant species and information on plant growth form, the authors show that 33–68% of the global land surface will experience a significant change in the next 50 years in how climate supports the plant growth forms that define terrestrial ecosystems.

Analysing occurrence records from >200,000 plant species across 1,103 regions, the authors show that mycorrhizal associations are less common among native island plants than native mainland plants and decline with increasing island isolation.

Alien species of animals and plants can invade new regions of the earth. This study performs a global analysis of temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of alien species introductions over the past 200 years, and reports no saturation in the rate at which these invasion are increasing.

The authors predict biodiversity loss under potential future agricultural change. Agricultural expansion threatens species richness and abundance worldwide (up to one-third in some areas), often with little overlap between protected areas and high-risk expansion areas.

Analysis of eight taxonomic groups across 186 islands and 423 mainland regions reveals that those with the greatest gross domestic product per capita, human population density and area have the highest established alien species richness, with the strongest effects on islands.

Comprehensive digital information on species distributions is crucial for research in ecology, evolution and conservation. Here, Meyer et al.find large gaps and biases in global vertebrate point records, especially in emerging economies, and identify key factors currently limiting information.

Global patterns of regional plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether they hold for local communities is debated. This study created multi-grain global maps of alpha diversity for vascular plants to provide a nuanced understanding of plant diversity hotspots and improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.

Identifying economic and ecological trade-offs of land-use transitions is important to ensure sustainability. Here, Grass et al. find biodiversity-profit trade-offs in tropical land-use transitions in Sumatra, and show that targeted landscape planning is needed to increase land-use efficiency while ensuring socio-ecological sustainability.

Forest structure depends both on extrinsic factors such as climate and on intrinsic properties such as community composition and diversity. Here, the authors use a dataset of stand structural complexity based on LiDAR measurements to build a global map of structural complexity for primary forests, and find that precipitation variables best explain global patterns of forest structural complexity.

Direct and cascading land-use effects alter biomass and species richness of taxa across trophic levels ranging from microorganisms to birds in a multi-taxon research initiative in Sumatra, Indonesia.

A global database of alien plants, showing that over 13,000 species, nearly 4% of the global flora, have become naturalized in a new location.

Relatively rapid changes in island area, isolation and connectivity observed since the Last Glacial Maximum have had measurable effects on present-day biodiversity, with formerly larger and less well connected islands having a greater number of endemic species.

Species richness in mountain environments is linked to mountain-building and climatic processes, an integration of geological, climatic, and biological datasets reveals.

Tree islands can enhance species turnover and multi-taxon diversity in oil palm plantations, mainly due to increased soil fauna and landscape heterogeneity, according to a landscape manipulation experiment in a monodominant plantation in Sumatra

Plants associated with nitrogen-fixing bacterial symbionts are disproportionately underrepresented on islands, suggesting that these bacteria might play a limiting role in island plant biogeography.

Delavaux et al. uses global plant databases to examine how the types of mycorrhizal fungi influence the colonization of plants on islands. Their results show that arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis limits plant species’ establishment on islands more than other mycorrhizal associations, and that this initial filter of AM plant species impacts diversification and plant invasion risks.

TreeDivNet is the largest network of biodiversity experiments worldwide, but needs to expand. We encourage colleagues to establish new experiments on the relation between tree species diversity and forest ecosystem functioning, and to make use of the platform for collaborative research.