Multidimensional diversity recovery following invasive species removal: Roles of colonization, extinction and abundance shifts

Biological invasion is a global ecological challenge, threatening biodiversity and ecosystem functionality. While invasive species removal is a widely used strategy for restoring communities, its effects on the recovery of diversity, particularly through the dynamics of species colonization, extinction and shifts in abundance distribution, remain poorly understood. By conducting a three-year field experiment, we assessed the recovery of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of non-invasive communities under different intensities of invasive species removal. We further examined how species colonization, extinction and shifts in species abundance distributions contribute to these multidimensional diversity changes. Our results showed that the removal of invasive species increased taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of non-invasive communities. Notably, abundance-weighted diversity measures showed stronger recovery compared to incidence-based metrics. The removal of invaders promoted new colonization, reduced local extinction and increased the evenness of resident species over time. While the removal did not systematically alter the phylogenetic or functional patterns of species colonization and extinction, it enhanced the dominance of distantly related and functionally dissimilar species and substantially increased abundance-weighted phylogenetic and functional diversity. Synthesis. Our findings highlight the critical, yet often overlooked, role of shifts in species abundance distributions in driving the recovery of phylogenetic and functional diversity after invader removal. By integrating colonization–extinction dynamics with shifts in abundance distributions, our study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding community dynamics and restoration outcomes following invasive species management.