Objectives: - Identify plant communities in which H. mantegazzianum occurs and compare the degree of human impact on the vegetation. - Determine the habitat preferences with regard to climate, altitude, soil conditions, impact of former land use and land use change. - Detect the factors that facilitate the spread on the landscape scale. Study areas: Landscape sections of 1 km invaded by H. mantegazzianum in different european regions (Fig. 1 shows an example). Methods: Relevés of invaded vegetation are made within the landscape sections and the abundance of H. mantegazzianum-age states (juveniles, vegetative adults, generative adults) is counted (plot size 25 m2). Additionally site conditions (soil nutrients, light consumption, disturbances etc.) are recorded. H. mantegazzianum stands are mapped with GPS and overlaid with multitemporal aerial photographs and existing geodata (e.g. geological and climate data) by means of a GIS. Data analysis: Multivariate statistics will be used to analyse relationships between environmental data and the invasion succes of H. mantegazzianum. The aim is to identify the most important factors facilitating the spread of H. mantegazzianum.