Family: Rosaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Elevation range exceeds 1000 m, demonstrating environmental versatility
- Widely naturalized in regions with temperate climates
- An agricultural weed, causing serious economic losses
- An environmental weed, impacting native ecosystems
- Several Rubus species are highly invasive
- Prickly and thorny
- Potentially allelopathic
- Biomass (dead canes) increases fire risk
- Shade-tolerant
- Tolerates many soil types
- Scrambling and able to climb over and potentially smother other vegetation
- Forms dense, impenetrable thickets
- Produces viable seed both sexually and apomictically
- Hybridizes with other Rubus species
- Able to spread vegetatively
- Seeds dispersed by birds, frugivorous animals, water and intentionally by people
- Prolific seed production (potentially 1000s per square meter)
- Able to coppice and resprout after cutting and fires
Low Risk Traits:
- Seeds require cold stratification, and as a temperate species, may only be a threat at higher elevations in tropical and subtropical islands
- Edible fruit
- Palatable to goats and deer
- Herbicides may provide effective control