Agnes S. Dellinger, Franz Essl, Diego Hojsgaard, Bernhard Kirchheimer, Simone Klatt, Wayne Dawson, Jan Pergl, Petr Pysek, Mark van Kleunen, Ewald Weber, Marten Winter, Elvira Hoerandl, Stefan Dullinger

• We compiled global occurrence data sets of 13 congeneric sexual and apomictic species pairs, and used principal components analysis (PCA) and kernel smoothers to compare changes in climatic niche optima, breadths and unfilling/expansion between native and alien ranges. Niche change metrics were compared between sexual and apomictic species. All 26 species showed changes in niche optima and/or breadth and 14 species significantly expanded their climatic niches. However, we found no effect of the reproductive system on niche dynamics. Instead, species with narrower native niches showed higher rates of niche expansion in the alien ranges. Our results suggest that niche shifts are frequent in plant invasions but evolutionary potential may not be of major importance for such shifts. Niche dynamics rather appear to be driven by changes of the realized niche without adaptive change of the fundamental climatic niche.