‘Plant invasions and herbivorousness: genetic processes and ecological causes of invasive plant success’

Carezza Verónica Botto Mahan, Francisco Perfectti Álvarez, José María Gómez Reyes, Juan Pedro Martínez Camacho, Richard Anthony Lankau, Rodrigo Guillermo Medel Contreras, Sharon Strauss.

Using Brassica nigra as a model species, this project will develop conceptual tools that can help us elucidate the causes and put forward effective eradication strategies from a dual ecological and genetic perspective. In doing so, we will apply three complementary approaches: the relations existing between the invasive species and organisms that can potentially limit their invasion success, the herbivores; the genetic differentiation produced in the plants as a result of the invasion process; and empirical analysis of the cause of changes in aplants from different regions of the planet, due either to adaptation to local conditions in the new zone or to phenotype plasticity.