Invasion‐resistance in experimental grassland communities: species richness or species identity?

Abstract

The question as to why some communities are more invasible than others has pro‐found implications for conservation biology and land management. The theoretical issues involved go right to the heart of our understanding of species coexistence and community assembly. The experiment reported here indicates that for productive, small‐scale grassland plots, species identity matters more than species richness in determining both the number of invading species and the total biomass of invasives.