Invasive alien species can negatively impact on newly colonised ecosystems. Thus, it is important to understand factors that facilitate invasiveness. Genetic diversity will enable a species to exploit a variety of environmental conditions. Yet, the process of dispersal to a new ecosystem will commonly create a genetic bottleneck and, hence, result in low diversity. Here we explored variability at genetic and morpho-physiological level of island of Ireland populations of alien, invasive Lemna minuta. A comparison of nine clones of L. minuta with nine clones of co-generic, native Lemna minor shows similar levels of genetic diversity across both species. Thus, the successful invasion of Ireland by L. minuta is associated with substantial, intraspecific diversity. It is hypothesised that increased biodiversity is due to repeated invasions from continental Europe, which occurred despite the geographic barriers separating the island from mainland Europe.

外来入侵物种会对新殖民的生态系统产生负面影响。因此，了解促进侵入性的因素很重要。遗传多样性将使一个物种能够利用各种环境条件。然而，向新生态系统扩散的过程通常会造成遗传瓶颈，从而导致多样性低下。在这里，我们探索了爱尔兰岛外来入侵的Lemna minuta种群在遗传和形态生理水平上的变异性。将L. minuta的 9 个克隆与共属、本地Lemna minor的 9 个克隆进行比较，表明两个物种的遗传多样性水平相似。因此，L. minuta成功入侵爱尔兰与大量的种内多样性有关。假设生物多样性增加是由于欧洲大陆的反复入侵，尽管该岛与欧洲大陆之间存在地理障碍，但这种入侵还是发生了。