Analyse de la terminologie relative aux plantes vasculaires exogènes : application à l’inventaire des archéophytes et néophytes de France hexagonale

The study of vascular plants introduced by humans outside their natural range has generated a prolific terminology that has often become abstruse and unnecessarily complex. In recent decades, invasion ecology has sought, instead, to place the processes of introduction, naturalization and invasion of taxa within a unified theoretical framework. As a result, the terminology that describes the status of a taxon along the introduction-naturalisation-invasion sequence can be clarified and simplified. As part of the project to inventory exogenous vascular plants in mainland France, we propose to modernise and harmonise the French terminology with that of the international literature by basing it, as far as possible, on ecological processes. This work has led to the development of concepts such as neotaxon, as well as to clarify the meaning of “invasive plant” and “invasive alien plant” according to local (population level) and regional (territory level) abundances and whether or not their impacts are taken into account. Clarified terminology should also allow managers to better target and optimise their management strategies.