The Astarales/Asteraceae (Daisies and related plants) and Poales/Poaceae (grasses, sedges, and reeds) are consistently among the most commonly studied invasive plants across time, and there is an increasing trend for scientists to study invasive legumes (i.e., Fabaceae) ( χ 2 = 6.2, df = 1, p = .001) (Figure 7 ).
Finally, there is also a marginally statistically significant increase of interest in recent years (notably in 2019/2020) in plant physiological trait research ( χ 2 = 3.2, df = 1, p = .076), which appears to be driven primarily by increased interest in the role of ecophysiological and functional traits in invasive plant success within invaded ecosystems. 4
This is an important trend in this field, as invasive plants are projected to become a greater threat in developing countries due to globalization (Chong et al., 2021 ; Seebens et al., 2015 , 2021 ) and climate change (Dullinger et al., 2017 ), and a better understanding of the processes underlying plant invasions within these regions is crucial to understanding the ecology of plant invasions worldwide. 4.2 Climatic zone and ecosystem type The vast majority of invasive plant studies across the 22‐year period of our analysis has been conducted in Mediterranean, subtropical, and temperate climatic zones.