[APWG] Exotics species overhyped

[Janet Allen]

I hesitate to respond to this topic since I'm not a scientist, but as a layperson I found Douglas Tallamy's (who IS a scientist) book Bringing Nature Home a compelling argument for the benefits of native plants and the dangers of non-native and especially invasive plants. 

This book targets a lay audience, but his professional publications are listed on his website at
http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/  . 
Links to some of his data are at http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/host/index.html . From here, you can download his findings on the number of lepidoptera (used as a proxy for all insects) that various plants support. 

Basically (as I understand it), insects are an important foundation for ecosystems, and native plants are extremely important as food for insects. They can't generally eat the leaves of  non-native plants since they didn't evolve to bypass chemical defenses of plants as they're able to with the native plants which which they evolved.

Janet Allen