Insights into the phenomenon of alien plant invasion and its synergistic interlinkage with three current ecological issues

Climate change, fire and habitat loss have been linked separately with selected aspect(s) of alien plant invasion. No attempt has also been made to simultaneously understand the linkages that exist among the three issues. There is a need of scientific literature that inter-links the three phenomena simultaneously with all the aspects of alien plant invasion. This would help to develop a comprehensive understanding about the role played by the issues directly and indirectly in magnifying habitat invasion. The present review is the first attempt to reveal in detail the complex environmental and ecological processes that synergistically link the issues with one-another and alien plant invasion. Scores were also assigned to secondary information and analyzed statistically. The three phenomena were precisely found to increase the problem through direct or indirect effects. While devising mitigation measures, such inter-linkages must be taken into account so that alien plant species could be managed efficiently. (C) 2018 National Science Museum of Korea (NSMK) and Korea National Arboretum (KNA), Publishing Services by Elsevier.