Plant Invasions: The Role of Biotic Interactions (eng)

There are many books on aspects of plant invasions, but none that focus on the key role of species interactions in mediating invasions. This book reviews exciting new findings and explores how new methods and tools are shedding new light on crucial processes in plant invasions. In 23 chapters, with contributions from 51 authors, the book addresses: · the main theories and hypotheses in plant invasion ecology that invoke species interactions; · plant invasions that are facilitated by, or benefit from, by mutualistic interactions and release from enemies; · antagonistic interactions that prevent or hinder plant invasions; · impacts of plant invasions on native species interactions and ecosystem functioning; · the interaction-network approach to understanding plant invasions; · the importance of considering species interactions in managing plant invasions

- Anna Traveset is a Research Professor of the Spanish Research Council based at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced studies in Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. Her research focuses on species interactions, mostly on island ecosystems, and how these are influenced by different drivers of global change. She has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals and as book chapters, and has edited several special issues, one in Journal of Biogeography (2012) and the other in AoB PLANTS (2015). She belongs to the editorial board of five scientific journals. In 2017, she was awarded the Prize King Jaume I in the category of 'Environmental Protection'.

David M. Richardson was Director of the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology in South Africa between 2011 and 2022. He is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research focuses on biological invasions, mainly plant invasions. David is author or co-author of over 500 journal papers and book chapters and several books, including Invasion Dynamics (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Invading Ecological Networks (Cambridge University Press, 2022). He has edited or co-edited nine books, including Ecology and Biogeography of Pinus (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Fifty Years of Invasion Ecology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), Biological Invasions in South Africa (Springer, 2022) and Plant Invasions: The Role of Biotic Interactions (CABI, 2022). He was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Diversity and Distributions between 1998 and 2015. David was awarded the Hans Sigrist Prize for 2006 by the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2012 received the John F.W. Herschel Medal, the senior medal of the Royal Society of South Africa, and in 2019 was recipient of the African Union's Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence (Continental). Most of his work on this book was done while he was on sabbatical leave with support from the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic.

Prof. Colleen T. Downs is a South African Research Chair and has been based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal since 1994. Her research interests are broad and interdisciplinary, spanning the conservation, ecology, physiology and behaviour of terrestrial vertebrates with changing land use. This includes ecosystem health in KwaZulu-Natal, incorporating conservation, general biology and persistence of mammal, herpetological and bird species with changing land use (including urban ecology). There is a focus on species such as Cape parrots, bushbuck, oribi, pelicans, Cape vultures, Nile crocodiles, fruit bats, raptors, small carnivores and feral cats. Her other key contribution has been in the development of increased research capacity at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research group is currently investigating ecosystem health and functionality across a range of taxa and biomes in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces of South Africa, with a focus on species distributions, persistence and anthropogenic threats. They have also produced recommendations for conservation and landscape managers on how best to preserve ecosystem functionality based on sound ecological research.

Johannes Le Roux is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He is also an International Research Associate at the Centre for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is a plant biologist, broadly interested in the ecology and evolutionary biology of invasive species. Jaco's research traverses spatial and temporal scales, from studying the microevolutionary dynamics of populations to interpreting the biogeography of plant species. He is author or co-author of over 130 journal publications and book chapters and is the sole author of the book The Evolutionary Ecology of Invasive Species (Academic Press, 2022). Jaco is a long-standing associate editor for several international journals, including Biological Invasions, Conservation Genetics, Austral Ecology and Oecologia.