Finally a study specifically addresses why some invasive plant studies show a decrease in biodiversity, and some show an increase or no change in biodiversity. Not surprisingly, scale matters. If you walk through a forest heavily invaded by non-native shrubs, you often find no plants growing under the shrubs. But in the context of the landscape, you can still find the native species that used to grow in that forest. On the small scale, invasive plants decrease biodiversity, but at larger scales, biodiversity often remains unchanged. The authors point out that some ecosystem services that occur at smaller scales such as water filtration, are still likely to be affected by plant invasions.
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