Critic's Choice: Invasive Plants Versus Oklahoma's Biodiversity

Abstract

E. O. Wilson stated that invasive species are second only to habitat loss for reducing biodiversity, and that threat to biodiversity by invasive plants is the subject of this report. For that purpose, the standard definition of invasive species as one that causes harm to humans or other species when introduced to an ecosystem is too broad to be helpful. Under that definition, several  native species are classified as invasive because they grow in cultivated fields, but biodiversity does not exist there.