CloneInvasion

Eco-Evolutionary dynamics of biological invasions reconstructed from ancient DNA

01/01/2022 to 31/12/2023

Invasive species are one of the major threats to biodiversity but they also represent excellent systems for studying rapid evolution and adaptation, species colonization and response to climate change. Although great progress has been made in many areas of invasion ecology, evolutionary processes operating at different stages of species spread and invasion are still poorly understood. Asian knotweeds (Reynoutria japonica, R. sachalinensis and their hybrid R. bohemica) are among the world worst invasive plant species. Particularly, the global invasion by R. japonica is impressive, as it is assumed to occur as a giant clone. In this project, we will use Reynoutria species complex to understand the mechanisms underlying key transitions and drivers of plant colonization, range expansion and different invasion stages. We will build a herbarium database with specimen details spanning back up to 180 years ago to document spatial and temporal dynamics of knotweed range expansion and invasion. We will also perform herbarium genomics to describe genomic diversity and genomics changes associated with species spread and to understand the role of hybridization and ploidy variation in plant colonization and invasion.