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Questions: The human-related spread of alien plants has serious environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Therefore, it is important to know which habitats are most threatened by invasion and why. We studied a wide range of European grasslands to assess: (a) which alien species are the most successful invaders in grasslands; (b) how invasion levels differ across European regions (countries or their parts) and biogeographical regions; and (c) which habitat types are the most invaded. Location: Europe. Methods: We selected 97,411 grassland vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and assigned a native or alien status to each of the 8,212 vascular plant species found in these plots. We considered only neophytes (alien species introduced after 1500 AD), which we further divided according to their origin. We compared the levels of invasion using relative neophyte richness in the species pool, relative neophyte richness and cover per plot, and percentages of invaded plots among regions and habitats. Results: Only 536 species, representing 6.5% of all grassland vascular plant species, were classified as neophytes. These were mostly therophytes or hemicryptophytes with low habitat specificity. Most of them were present in very few plots, while only three species were recorded in more than 1% of all plots (Onobrychis viciifolia, Erigeron annuus and Erigeron canadensis). Although invasion levels were generally low, we found more invaded plots in the Boreal and Continental regions. When considering only non-European neophytes, the Pannonian region was the most invaded. Among different grassland habitats, sandy grasslands were most invaded, and alpine and oromediterranean grasslands least invaded. Conclusions: In general, natural and semi-natural European grasslands have relatively low levels of neophyte invasions compared with human-made habitats or alluvial forests, as well as with grasslands on other continents. The most typical neophytes invading European grasslands are species with broad ecological niches., IA, VK, JDa, MV, IK and MC were supported by the Czech Science Foundation (EXPRO grant no. 19-28491X), PP and JP by the Czech Science Foundation (EXPRO grant no. 19-28807X), JDa, PP and JP by the Czech Academy of Sciences (long-term research development project RVO 67985939), IB by the Basque Government (IT936-16), RGG by REMEDINAL network (S2018/EMT-4338), AL by Komarov Botanical Institute, RAS (AAAA-A19-119031290052-1) and AK by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (grant no. 2020.01/0140). JCS considers this work a contribution to his VILLUM Investigator project “Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World” funded by VILLUM FONDEN (grant 16549).

Background The "Flora of Russia" project on iNaturalist brought together professional scientists and amateur naturalists from all over the country. Over 10,000 people were involved in the data collection. New information Within 20 months, the participants accumulated 750,143 photo observations of 6,857 species of the Russian flora. This constitutes the largest dataset of open spatial data on the country’s biodiversity and a leading source of data on the current state of the national flora. About 87% of all project data, i.e. 652,285 observations, are available under free licences (CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-NC) and can be freely used in scientific, educational and environmental activities.

Data on two vascular plant species new to Russian flora and other 32 notable regional records made in seven regions of European Russia (Vologda Region, Kostroma Region, Leningrad Region, Pskov Region, Yaroslavl Region, Saint-Petersburg and Udmurt Republic) are given. The presented material is derived from the floristic inventories conducted in 2006-2017, and critical study of the available herbarium. Euphrasia micrantha Rchb. and Senecio inaequidens DC. are reported as new to Russia, the first species as native and the secong one as alien. Bupleurum falcatum L. is reported as a new alien species for the flora of NW European Russia. Bidens frondosa L. is new for the Pskov Region. Cardamine flexuosa With. is reported for the Yaroslavl Region for the first time. Eight taxa are reported as new to the Kostroma Region, five of them (Alnus x hybrida R. Br. ex Rchb., Carex bohemica Schreb., Cladium mariscus (L.) Pohl, Sedum maximum (L.) Hoffm. and Urtica galeopsifolia Wierzb. ex Opiz) considered native, and three others (Collomia linearis Nutt., Gypsophila elegans Bieb. and Silene armeria L.) as alien. Dryopteris x uliginosa (A. Br. ex Doll) Kuntze ex Druce is a new hybrid for the Kostroma Region, Leningrad Region and Udmurt Republic. In addition, 20 species with lacking regional records are reported to. The data presented points to a continuing spreading of alien plants across European Russia. On the other hand, the native flora of some regions is still poorly investigated.