Data from: Propagule pressure increase and phylogenetic diversity decrease community’s susceptibility to invasion

Invasions pose a large threat to native species, but the question of why some species are more invasive, and some communities more prone to invasions than others, is far from solved. Using ten different three-species bacterial communities, we tested experimentally if the phylogenetic relationships between an invader and a resident community and propagule pressure affect invasion probability. We found that greater diversity in phylogenetic distances between the resident community members and the invader lowered invasion success, and higher propagule pressure increased invasion success whereas phylogenetic distance had no clear effect. In the later stages of invasion phylogenetic diversity had no effect on invasion success but community identity started to play a stronger role. Taken together, our results emphasize that invasion success at the early stages of invasion does not depend only on propagule pressure, but also on the properties of the community members. This is one of the first studies showing that phylogenetic diversity can constrain invasions. Our results thus indicate that invasion is a process where both invader and residing community characters act in concert.