20.500.12556/DiRROS-31943 Syntaxonomy and functional diversity of Buddleja davidii‑(co) dominated plant communities in Europe Buddleja davidii Franch. is a Chinese ornamental plant that has become successfully naturalised and potentially invasive in most of Europe over the past century. Regarded as a species of unstable and disturbed sites, its ecological niche, invasiveness, and syntaxonomy have often been overlooked. In this study, we examined plant communities in which the species occurs in Slovenia and Europe using multivariate methods, focusing on differences in their ecology, taxonomical and functional diversity. To evaluate the invasiveness potential of B. davidii in communities it inhabits, we tested the extent to which its cover explains variation in Shannon–Wiener’s diversity index, evenness, disturbance severity and frequency indices, proportions of life forms, Grime’s life strategies and neophytes’ cover and number, using linear regression. Our results show that B. davidii has its ecological optimum in various types of shrub communities, primarily in riparian zones and abandoned quarries, which represent newly proposed subassociations of the typical Buddlejetum association. Communities with B. davidii can withstand varying levels of disturbance and generally consist of species with a competitive life strategy, while the most dominant life forms are hemicryptophytes and phanerophytes. Increasing cover of B. davidii accounted for little variation in taxonomical and functional diversity, and this effect was the most prominent in riparian shrub communities, followed by the Buddlejetum association and communities on wall crevices. Occurrences in different plant communities confirm the species’ ecological plasticity, whereas its invasiveness is relative, due to its limited relationship with the diversity parameters. butterfly bush classification disturbance diversity invasive species life strategies vegetation Buddleja davidii true false true Angleški jezik Latinski jezik Neznano 2026-08-19 12:48:20 2026-08-19 12:48:20 2026-08-20 03:48:53 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 19. 8. 2026; Soavtorji: Jernej Jogan, Juan Antonio Campos, Wolfgang Willner, Urban Šilc; str. 1-16 issue 8, [article no.] 192 Vol. 81 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2026-07-20 57 1336-9563 288192259 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11756-026-02260-y 1 806d5f18-9bbb-11f1-af5a-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=49709 RAZ_Sabic_Azra_2026.pdf RAZ_Sabic_Azra_2026.pdf 1 250D832240765DEEF164DDD0197605E3 c67f5eb9af87df7a9015afa994755c30cac8b3246493b23efba0046b561d3598 95ad9d59-9bbb-11f1-af5a-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=49710 Kmetijski inštitut Slovenije 0 0 0