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Spurge purge: Plant fossils reveal ancient South America-to-Asia ‘escape route’

By | News, Plant Science

Anyone who has taken a long road trip or bike ride has used a product of the spurge plant family — rubber. The spurge family, or Euphorbiaceae, includes economically valuable plants like the rubber tree, castor oil plant, poinsettia and cassava. Newly identified fossils found in Argentina suggest that a group of spurges took a trip of their own tens of millions of years ago. Driven by climatic changes and land movements over millennia, a group of spurges relocated thousands of miles from ancient South America to Australia, Asia and parts of Africa.

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Image: Agricultural landscape dominated by exotic species of European origin (La Honda Creek Preserve, California, U.S.A.). Credit: Dr Javier Galán Díaz

Can we predict if a plant species will become exotic?

By | News, Plant Science

Plant species become exotic after being accidentally or deliberately transported by humans to a new region outside their native range, where they establish self-perpetuating populations that quickly reproduce and spread. This is a complex process mediated by many factors, such as plant traits and genetics, which challenges the creation of general guidelines to predict or manage plant invasions.

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