Our environmental ecology and restoration team, led by Professor Sun Jianfan, has published the latest research findings on Unveiling the Resistance of Native Week Communities: Insights for Managing Invasive Week Species in Disturbed Environments in the flagship academic journal of Biology Reviews (2022 Impact Factor 14.355, Five Year Impact Factor 12.8). Jiangsu University is the first completion unit of the paper, and the first author of the paper is Wajid Ali Khattak, a foreign postdoctoral fellow at our university. Professor Sun Jianfan is the corresponding author.

Local weed populations play an important role in the health and sustainability of ecosystems. Understanding the dynamics between local weed communities and invasive species in disturbed environments is crucial for effective management and maintenance of normal ecosystem functions. This study explores how to understand and utilize the resistance of local weed communities to manage and prevent invasive weeds in disturbed environments. In environments affected by human activities, pollution is usually high and has an impact on the dynamics and ecological functions of ecosystems. In such an environment, local weed communities may have the ability to resist invasive species, mainly due to their strong adaptability to the local environment, as well as their advantages in ecological characteristics, soil condition changes, and biological interactions such as competition, symbiotic relationships, and allelopathy. This resistance ability is crucial for the protection and restoration of ecosystems, and provides an important perspective for further studying the mechanisms of plant invasion and developing targeted management strategies.

This research achievement has been supported by projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 31971427). Article link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.13043.