Land use history alters the relationship between native and exotic plants: the rich don't always get richer
Observational studies of diversity have consistently found positive correlations between native and exotic species, suggesting that the same environmental factors that drive native species richness also drive exotic species richness, i.e., “the rich get richer”. We examined patterns of native and exotic plant species richness in temperate forests that have been undergoing reforestation since the turn of the twentieth century to test the influence of disturbance arising from land-use history on this relationship.