Darwin's naturalization conundrum describes two seemingly contradictory hypotheses regarding whether alien species closely or distantly related to native species should be more likely to naturalize in regional floras. Both expectations have accumulated empirical support, and whether such apparent inconsistency can be reconciled at the global scale is unclear. Here, using 219,520 native and 9,531 naturalized alien plant species across 487 globally distributed regions, we found a latitudinal gradient in Darwin's naturalization conundrum. Naturalized alien plant species are more closely related to native species at higher latitudes than they are at lower latitudes, indicating a greater influence of preadaptation in harsher climates. Human landscape modification resulted in even steeper latitudinal clines by selecting aliens distantly related to natives in warmer and drier regions. Our results demonstrate that joint consideration of climatic and anthropogenic conditions is critical to reconciling Darwin's naturalization conundrum.

Biodiversity Macroecology and Biogeography University of Göttingen Göttingen 37077 Germany

Biota of North America Program Chapel Hill 27516 NC USA

Campus Institut Data Science Göttingen 37077 Germany

Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use University of Göttingen Göttingen 37077 Germany

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

Department of Biological Sciences University of Toronto Scarborough Toronto ON M1C 1A4 Canada

Department of Biology University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras San Juan 00925 Puerto Rico

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

Division of Bioinvasions Global Change and Macroecology Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research University of Vienna Vienna 1030 Austria

Ecology Department of Biology University of Konstanz Konstanz 78464 Germany

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig 04103 Germany

Institute of Biology Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg Halle 06108 Germany

Naturalis Biodiversity Centre Darwinweg 2 2333 CR Leiden Leiden The Netherlands

Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Taizhou University Taizhou 318000 China

Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station Institute of Eco Chongming School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences East China Normal University Shanghai 200241 China

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A latitudinal gradient in Darwin's naturalization conundrum at the global scale for flowering plants

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figshare
10.6084/m9.figshare.20055611.v5