Alien species are widely linked to biodiversity change, but the extent to which they are associated with the reshaping of ecological communities is not well understood. One possible mechanism is that assemblages where alien species are found exhibit elevated temporal turnover. To test this, we identified assemblages of vascular plants in the BioTIME database for those assemblages in which alien species are either present or absent and used the Jaccard measure to compute compositional dissimilarity between consecutive censuses. We found that, although alien species are typically rare in invaded assemblages, their presence is associated with an increase in the average rate of compositional change. These differences in compositional change between invaded and uninvaded assemblages are not linked to differences in species richness but rather to species replacement (turnover). Rapid compositional restructuring of assemblages is a major contributor to biodiversity change, and as such, our results suggest a role for alien species in bringing this about.

Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program Biodiversity Ecology and Conservation group International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Schlossplatz 1 Laxenburg 2361 Austria

Centre for Biological Diversity School of Biology University of St Andrews Fife KY16 9TH UK

Department of Ecology Faculty of Science Charles University Viničná 7 Prague CZ 12844 Czech Republic

Department of Invasion Ecology Institute of Botany Czech Academy of Sciences Průhonice CZ 25243 Czech Republic

LEPaC Ecology Department IB Universidade de São Paulo Rua do Matão Travessa 14 São Paulo SP CEP 05508 090 Brazil

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Elevated compositional change in plant assemblages linked to invasion