Differential responses of invasive and native plants to warming with simulated changes in diurnal temperature ranges

We tested the impacts of unequal night-and-day warming on seed germination and seedling growth of invasive and native plants. Most warming treatments facilitated native seed germination but not that of invasives. The invaders performed better than the natives, and they allocated greater biomass to stems than the natives under all warming treatments. Compared with symmetric warming, both an increase and decrease in the asymmetric summer warming inhibited the growth of the invaders but not the natives, whereas the decrease in asymmetric winter warming inhibited the growth of both invasive and native plants. These findings highlight the importance of asymmetric warming in influencing plant invasion.