The USFS [1] page on Paulownia tomentosa cites a lot of research suggesting that it’s a “transient” invader that rapidly settles harsh or disturbed (e.g. by fir

The USFS [1] page on Paulownia tomentosa cites a lot of research suggesting that it’s a “transient” invader that rapidly settles harsh or disturbed (e.g. by fire) environments, but is highly shade intolerant and gets outcompetes in the long run. So it seems to me a good strategy is to use it to rapidly colonize non-forested areas, sequester that biomass, and eventually cultivate more diverse species (or something like that). >”...thus, princesstree frequently establishes and spreads after disturbances that create these conditions, such as fire, windstorms, pestilence, floods, landslides, and anthropogenic disturbances such as construction, cultivation, mining, and logging” > “Hu suggests that by the time Paulownia grows to maturity, the seeds it produces likely cannot survive within the same habitat as the parent plant because the succeeding vegetation has ‘modified the physical environment so much that no new Paulownia has any chance to get established’. Thus, princesstree may not alter the successional pathways of some native ecosystems.“ [1] https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pautom/all.html https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pautom/all.h...