Daniel Montesinos Torres

• +61 7 423 21584
• daniel.montesinos@jcu.edu.au
• https://www.ath.org.au/australian-tropical-herbarium/contact/staff-profiles/daniel-montesinos
• JCU Cairns I Nguma-bada campus I Smithfield I Building E2 I Room 204
  

Invasive plant ecology: Invasive plants are unique unplanned experiments that allow us to study in real time how local adaptation and evolution in allopatry develop, and how natural communities respond to them. My approach is based on three angles: biogeography, reproductive ecology, and seed ecology.

Seed ecology: Seeds are crucial for the establishment and persistence of invasive weeds. Seed ecology and soil seed bank management is thus an essential component of plant invasions, and my research aims to understand weed seed dynamics and to take advantage of that knowledge to be able to effectively and efficiently manage plant invasions.

Biogeography: Biogeographic comparisons of closely related invasive and non-invasive species provide novel insights into invasive ecology. My work exemplifies how even non-invasive exotic species are adapting constantly to their non-native ranges, and that many of the trait-shifts detected between native and non-native ranges of invasive species are frequently found also for less successful non-invasive exotics. My studies indicate that local adaptation and reproductive isolation can occur at fastest rates than it was previously thought, and have broad biogeographic implications for the understanding of allopatry and speciation processes.

Reproductive ecology: I have pioneered the discovery of reproductive barriers arising between native and non-native populations of an invasive species. These incipient reproductive barriers can result from the accumulation of locally adaptive traits. Locally adapted traits themselves can be inherited in different ways, and the mode of inheritance contributes to determine the of evolutionary dynamics that will follow. My work has shown that some locally adapted invasive traits present intermediate inheritance; e.g., the offspring of a strong and a weak competitor presents intermediate competitive ability. In the presence of significant gene flow, this would be consistent with homogenising gene flow, in which population admixture leads to individuals with intermediate fitness. However, some other invasive species present dominant inheritance of at least some fitness traits, when admixture between strong and weak competitor genotypes results in an offspring of strong competitors.