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Bottom-up effects of plant quantity and quality on arthropod diversity across multiple trophic levels in a semi-arid grassland

1. Plant quantity and quality can independently affect the diversity of the entire arthropod communities and multiple arthropod taxa in grassland ecosystems. However, it remains unclear how these effects on arthropod taxa at one trophic level propagate through food web to influence the diversity of higher trophic levels. 2. We performed a monoculture experiment with 15 herbaceous species in the Inner Mongolian grassland to investigate how natural variations in plant productivity and host leaf traits affect herbivore taxon richness, which in turn affects predator taxon richness. 3. For herbivores, plant productivity indirectly promoted herbivore taxon richness by increasing herbivore biomass, which was attributed to the increases in the richness of dominant sucking herbivores and endophytes with high food requirements. However, the high plant quality indicator (e.g. high leaf protein, phosphorus and water contents, and high leaf protein to carbohydrate ratio) directly increased, whereas the low plant quality indicator (e.g. high leaf lignin content) directly decreased herbivore taxon richness. Taxon richness of chewing and sucking herbivores with specific feeding modes (tearing or sucking mouthparts) showed strong positive responses to increasing plant quality. 4. For predators, herbivore taxon richness, rather than herbivore biomass, mainly mediated the positive effects of plant productivity and the high plant quality indicator, but the negative effect of the low plant quality indicator, on predator taxon richness. At the feeding guild level, the taxon richness of parasitoids, other predators and spiders exhibited positive responses to different herbivores, which was attributed to their different diet preferences. Predator diversity could be promoted by prey partitioning among predator guilds facilitating species coexistence. At the family level, the taxon richness of most predator families was positively correlated with that of more than one herbivore family, suggesting that high predator diversity may be caused by balanced diets owing to high prey diversity. 5. Synthesis. Natural variations in plant quantity and quality can substantially affect the diversity of herbivores and cascade up the food web to affect predators. Specificity and mechanisms of feeding have a large impact on the responses of arthropod guilds at each trophic level.

Plant dispersal characteristics shape the relationship of diversity with area and isolation

Aim This study disentangles how plant dispersal syndromes influence the relationship of species richness with area and isolation while also accounting for the human impact on island biodiversity. It builds on the potential of islands at the mesoscale and of similar origin to contribute to the ongoing discussion in island biogeography on what determines species richness and filtering. Location Denmark, 54 saltwater and brackish water islands in the North and Baltic Sea Taxon Vascular plants, including pteridophytes (ferns, clubmosses and horsetails) Methods Generalized linear models (GLMs) and linear regressions are used to analyse how dispersal syndromes influence the relationships of species numbers with island area and isolation, as well as island inhabitation and human density, respectively. Results Species numbers, as well as mean seed mass and the proportion of zoochore and anemochore species, are positively related to island area while the share of water-dispersed species decreases with increasing area. The slope of the regression line representing the species-area relationship (SAR) was 0.34 and lies within the common range for this relationship. Isolation is weakly related to mean seed mass but has no explaining power for species numbers and the presence of specific dispersal syndrome on the target islands. Species richness and seed mass was positively related to human presence. Main conclusions Human impact for centuries has not overwritten the strong relationship of species richness with area on the Danish Islands but is affecting the shape of this relationship. Island area constitutes a strong filter for different dispersal syndromes and leads to the assumption that heavier and animal-dispersed seeds are positively related to island area due to the presence of more bird and mammal species. Human-induced loss of isolation caused by ongoing traffic and the connection of landmasses by bridges and ferries may be a reason for the overall low explanatory power of island isolation. Higher species richness on inhabited islands may further be linked to higher habitat diversity in human modified landscapes.

Spatial phylogenetic and phenotypic patterns reveal ontogenetic shifts in ecological processes of plant community assembly

The analysis of spatial phylogenetic and phenotypic structure of plant communities provides insight into the underlying processes and interactions governing their assembly, and how these may change during plant ontogeny. We used point pattern analysis to find out if saplings and adult plants are surrounded by phylogenetically and phenotypically more similar or dissimilar neighbours than expected by chance, and whether these associations change from the sapling to the adult stage. To this end, we combined information on the phylogenetic structure and eight phenotypic traits of 15 woody plant species in two Mediterranean mixed forests of southeastern Spain. At the community level, we found that the sapling bank at both sites did not show phylogenetic or phenotypic spatial patterns, but adults showed phylogenetic clustering (i.e., heterospecific neighbours were more similar than expected). At the species level, we found frequently repulsive patterns in the sapling bank of less abundant species (i.e., heterospecific sapling or adult neighbours were more dissimilar than expected) in both, phylogenetic and phenotypic analyses. For the adult stage, we found phylogenetic attraction (i.e., more similar neighbours) in just one species and phenotypic clustering in four species. The processes driving the assembly of the communities of saplings and adults leave detectable signals in the spatial phylogenetic and phenotypic structure of our two forest communities. Our findings reinforce the existence of ontogenetic shifts in the mechanisms involved in plant community assembly. Facilitation between phylogenetically distant and phenotypically divergent species favours the recruitment of less abundant species. However, processes acting later in the ontogeny ameliorate the competition between close relatives and determine the spatial structure of adult plants. Nevertheless, the role of phenotype in shaping adult-adult interactions was context- and trait-dependent. The use of spatial point pattern analysis allowed a nuanced interpretation of the phylogenetic and phenotypic structures of the plant community.

Clonal functional traits favor the invasive success of alien plants into native communities

Functional traits are frequently proposed to determine the invasiveness of alien species. However, few empirical studies have directly manipulated functional traits and tested their importance in the invasion success of alien species into native plant communities, particularly under global change. We manipulated clonal integration (a key clonal functional trait) of four alien clonal plants by severing inter-ramet connections or keeping them intact, and simulated their invasion into native plant communities with two levels of species diversity, population density and nutrient availability. High community diversity and density impeded the invasion success of the alien clonal plants. Clonal integration of the alien plants promoted their invasion success, particularly in the low-density communities associated with low species diversity or nutrient addition, which resulted in a negative correlation between performance of alien plants and native communities, as expected under global change. Thus, clonal integration can favor the invasion success of alien clonal plants into degraded resident communities with a high degree of disturbance and eutrophication. Our findings confirm the role of clonal functional traits in facilitating alien plant invasions into native plant communities, and suggest that clonal functional traits should be considered to efficiently restore degraded communities heavily invaded by alien clonal plants.

Improving citizen science data for long-term monitoring of plant species

In 2012, a new volunteer-based recording scheme for vascular plants was launched in the Netherlands. Its purpose is to track the changes in the number of occupied 1-km grid cells for as many native plant species as possible between survey rounds of 8 years. We did not prescribe a strict field protocol to minimize variation in observer effort, but instead chose to statistically correct for this variation with occupancy models. These models require replicated visits to a grid cell per season, which was implemented by having two independent observers survey grid cells and record all plant species observed. Now that a first survey round has ended (2012–2019), we evaluate our approach, i.e. we tested whether the scheme has the potential to produce proper trend estimates. The number of occupied grid cells in the first round was estimated per species, using an occupancy model with day of year, visit duration and observer experience as covariates for detection. The detection probability, which was 0.43 on average, strongly depended on visit duration and day of year. It was possible to estimate the number of occupied grid cells quite precisely for several hundreds of species, such that the statistical power is expected to be high enough to detect changes of 10% between survey rounds. For rare species, however, the power to detect changes is expected to be quite low. We conclude that the approach works well, but further improvements are suggested.

opencc-zeroDec 2021View details →

Effect of water availability on volatile-mediated communication between potato plants in response to insect herbivory

Airborne plant communication is a widespread phenomenon in which volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from damaged plants boost herbivore resistance in neighbouring, undamaged plants. Although this form of plant signalling has been reported in more than 30 plant species, there is still a considerable knowledge gap on how abiotic factors (e.g., water availability) alter its outcomes. We performed a greenhouse experiment to test for communication between potato plants (Solanum tuberosum) in response to herbivory by the generalist insect Spodoptera exigua and whether communication was affected by water availability. We paired emitter and receiver potato plants, with half of the emitters damaged by S. exigua larvae and half serving as undamaged controls. Both emitter and receiver plants were subjected to one of two water availability treatments: high (i.e., well-watered) vs. low (i.e., reduced watering) availability, thus effectively teasing apart water availability effects on the emission and reception components of signalling. After four days of herbivore feeding, we collected emitter VOCs and receivers were subjected to feeding by S. exigua to test for effects of signalling on induced resistance. Herbivory by S. exigua led to increased VOCs emissions as well as changes in VOCs composition in emitter plants. Furthermore, emitters subjected to low water availability exhibited a weaker induction of VOCs in response to herbivory relative to well-watered emitters. Results from the feeding bioassay indicated that receivers exposed to VOCs from herbivore-induced emitters showed lower S. exigua damage (i.e. higher induced resistance) compared to receivers exposed to undamaged emitters. However, we did not observe a significant effect of water availability in either emitters or receivers on plant communication. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of how the abiotic context affects plant communication by providing evidence of water availability effects on the induction of VOCs that may act as airborne signals between plants. The observed changes in induced VOCs had no visible consequences for plant communication. These findings thus suggest that the induction of key compounds mediating communication was not compromised by our experimental conditions.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Depicting the phenotypic space of the annual plant Diplotaxis acris in hyper-arid deserts

The phenotypic space encompasses the assemblage of trait combinations yielding well-suited integrated phenotypes. At the population level, understanding phenotypic space structure requires the quantification of among- and within-population variation in traits and the correlation pattern among them. Here, we studied the phenotypic space of the annual plant Diplotaxis acris occurring in hyper-arid deserts. Given the advance of warming and aridity in vast regions occupied by drylands, D. acris can indicate the successful evolutionary trajectory that many other annual plant species may follow in expanding drylands. To this end, we conducted a greenhouse experiment with 176 D. acris individuals from five Saudi populations to quantify the genetic component of variation in architectural and life-history traits. We found low among-population divergence but high among-individual variation in all traits. In addition, all traits showed a high degree of genetic determination in our study experimental conditions. We did not find significant effects of recruitment and fecundity on fitness. Finally, all architectural traits exhibited a strong correlation pattern among them, whereas for life-history traits, only higher seed germination implied earlier flowering. Seed weight appeared to be an important trait in D. acris, as individuals with heavier seeds tended to advance flowering and have a more vigorous branching pattern, which led to higher fecundity. Population divergence in D. acris might be constrained by the severity of the hyper-arid environment, but populations maintain high among-individual genetic variation in all traits. Furthermore, D. acris showed phenotypic integration for architectural traits and, to a lesser extent, for life-history traits. Overall, we hypothesize that D. acris may be fine-tuned to its demanding extreme environments. Evolutionary speaking, annual plants facing increasing warming, aridity and environmental seasonality might modify their phenotypic spaces towards new phenotypic configurations strongly dominated by correlated architectural traits enhancing fecundity and seed-related traits advancing flowering time.

Variety is the spice of life: flying-foxes exploit a variety of native and exotic food plants in an urban landscape mosaic

Generally, urbanization is a major threat to biodiversity; however, urban areas also provide habitats that some species can exploit. Flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.) are becoming increasingly urbanized; which is thought to be a result of increased availability and temporal stability of urban food resources, diminished natural food resources, or both. Previous research has shown that urban-roosting grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) preferentially forage in human-modified landscapes. However, which land-use areas and food plants support its presence in urban areas is unknown. We tracked nine P. poliocephalus roosting in Adelaide, South Australia, between December 2019 and May 2020, using global positioning systems (GPS), to investigate how individuals used the urban landscape mosaic for feeding. The most frequently visited land-use category was "residential" (40% of fixes) followed by "road-side," "reserves" and "primary production" (13–14% each). However, "reserves" were visited four times more frequently than expected from their areal availability, followed by the "residential" and "road-side" categories that were visited approximately twice more than expected each; in contrast, the "primary production" category was visited approximately five times less than expected. These results suggest that while residential areas provide most foraging resources supporting Adelaide's flying-fox population, reserves contain foraging resources that are particularly attractive to P. poliocephalus. Primary production land was relatively less utilized, presumably because it contains few food resources. Throughout, flying-foxes visited an eclectic mixture of diet plants (49 unique species), with a majority of feeding fixes (63%) to locally indigenous Australian native species; however, in residential areas 53% of feeding visits were to non-locally indigenous species, vs only 13% in reserves. Flowering and fruiting phenology records of the food plants visited further indicated that non-locally indigenous species increase the temporal availability of foraging resources for P. poliocephalus in urban Adelaide. Our findings demonstrate the importance of residential areas for urban-roosting P. poliocephalus, and suggest that the anthropogenic mixture of food resources available in the urban landscape mosaic supports the species' year-round presence in urban areas. Our results further highlight the importance of conserving natural habitats within the urban landscape mosaic, and stress the need for accounting for wildlife responses to urban greening initiatives.

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2022View details →

Statistics on caesium 137 deposition around the Fukushima-Daiichi plant after the 2011 accident

This dataset has been compiled by members of the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (IRSN, France) and consists of statistics on caesium 137 deposition around the Fukushima-Daiichi plant after the 2011 accident. These statistics cover each ~5km2 grid cell of an observation field of deposition in Bq.m-2 measured by aerial radiation monitoring.

Effect of drought and nutrient availability on invaded plant communities in a semi-arid ecosystem

Ecosystem functions are heavily dependent on the functional composition of the plant community, i.e., the functional traits of plants forming the community. This, on the one hand, depends on plant occurrence, but on the other hand depends on the intraspecific variability of functional traits of the species, which are influenced by climate and nutrient availability and affected by plant-plant interactions. To illustrate that, we studied the effects of drought and nitrogen addition (+ N), two important abiotic variables which are changing with ongoing global change, as well as their combined effect on the functional responses of grassland communities in semi-arid environments of Northern Africa comprising of natural and invasive species. We conducted a plot plant experiment where we planted three native species and one invasive plant species in artificial communities as of 5 individuals per species per plot. We exposed these communities to four different treatments: a drought treatment, a N-addition treatment, the combination between drought and N-addition as well as a control. To assess the performance of plants within treatments, we measured selected plant functional traits (plant height, specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), N content of the leaves (Nmass), specific root length (SRL) and root diameter) for all individuals occurring in our plots, and additionally assessed the above and belowground biomass for each plant individual. We found that the invasive species showed a higher performance (higher biomass accumulation, taller plants, higher SLA, Nmass, SRL and root diameter as well as lower LDMC) than the native species under drought conditions. The invasive species was especially successful with the combined impact of drought + N, which is a likely scenario in ongoing global change for our research area. Thus, plant functional traits might be a key factor for invasion success of plant species which will be even more pronounced under ongoing global change.

The frugivory network between birds and plants in a Neotropical periurban park

Frugivory networks exhibit a set of properties characterized by a number of network-theory derived metrics. Their structure often form deterministic patterns that can be explained by the functional roles of interacting species. Although we know lots about how these networks are organized when ecosystems are in a complete, functional condition, we know much less about how incomplete and simplified networks (such as those found in urban and periurban parks) are organized, which features are maintained, which ones are not, and why. In this paper, we examine the properties of a network between frugivorous birds and plants in a small Neotropical periurban park. We found a frugivory network composed of 29 species of birds and 23 of plants. The main roles in this network are played by four species of generalist birds (three resident, one migratory: Myiozetetes similis, Turdus grayi, Chlorospingus flavopectus, and Dumetella carolinensis) and three species of plants (one exotic, two early successional: Phoenix canariensis, Phoradendron sp., and Witheringia stramoniifolia). When compared to reference data from other locations in the Neotropics, species richness is low, one important network-level metric is maintained (modularity) whereas another one is not (nestedness). Nestedness, a metric associated with network specialists, is a feature this network lacks. Species-level metrics such as degree, species strength, and module roles, are not maintained. Our work supports modularity as the most pervasive network-level metric of altered habitats. From a successional point of view, our results suggest that properties revealed by species-level indices may be developed at a later time, lagging the acquisition of structural elements.

Nitrogen and water availability control plant carbon storage with warming

Plants may slow global warming through enhanced growth, because increased levels of photosynthesis stimulate the land carbon (C) sink. However, how climate warming affects plant C storage globally and key drivers that determining the response of plant C storage to climate warming remains unclear, causing uncertainty in climate projections. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis, compiling 393 observations from 99 warming studies to examine the global patterns of plant C storage responses to climate warming and explore the key drivers. Warming significantly increased total biomass (+8.4%), aboveground biomass (+12.6%) and belowground biomass (+10.1%). The effect of experimental warming on plant biomass was best explained by the availability of soil nitrogen (N) and water. Across the entire dataset, warming-induced changes in total, aboveground and belowground biomass all positively correlated with soil C:N ratio, an indicator of soil N availability. In addition, warming stimulated plant biomass more strongly in humid than in dry ecosystems, and warming tended to decrease root:shoot ratios at high soil C:N ratios. Together, these results suggest dual controls of warming effects on plant C storage; warming increases plant growth in ecosystems where N is limiting plant growth, but it reduces plant growth where water availability is limiting plant growth. Together, these findings suggested that warming effects on plant C storage largely depend on soil N and water status, which should be considered into Earth system models to improve the future prediction of C-climate change feedbacks.

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2022View details →

Spatial Repellency Effects of Taiwanese Plant Oils on the Biting Midge Forcipomyia taiwana

Raw data for journal. S1=GCMS top 20. S2=Y-tube olfactometer raw data. RawData.zip = Raw GCMS data, all of it.

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2022View details →

Differential effects of weather, plant phenology and predators on the seasonal variation of aphids on cabbage

Raw field data of aphids and predator (Syrphid, spiders, and coccinellids) densities on cabbage, and weather data in two agroecological zones of Ghana, collected over two years for five cropping seasons. Data was collected on field-grown cabbage weekly after two weeks of transplanting, till when cabbages were matured. The destructive sampling method according to Hughes, 1963 was adopted by randomly sampling the third, fourth, and fifth expanded leaves of 20 randomly selected cabbage plants. Aphids and predators present were visually identified, counted, and recorded.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2022View details →

Verdú et al.'s datasets on plant recruitment networks

Plant recruitment interactions (i.e., who recruits under whom) shape the composition, diversity and structure of plant communities. Despite the huge body of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying recruitment interactions between species, we still know little about the structure of the recruitment networks emerging in ecological communities. Modeling and analyzing the community-level structure of plant recruitment interactions as a complex network can provide relevant information on ecological and evolutionary processes acting both at the species and ecosystem levels. We report a data set containing 143 plant recruitment networks in 23 countries across five continents, including temperate and tropical ecosystems. Each network identifies the species under which another species recruits. All networks report the number of recruits (i.e., individuals) per species. The data set includes >850,000 recruiting individuals involved in 118,411 paired interactions between 3,318 vascular plant species across the globe. The cover of canopy species and open ground is also provided as a separated file. Three sampling protocols were used: 1) The Recruitment Network (RN) protocol (106 networks) focuses on interactions between established plants (“canopy species”) and plants in their early stages of recruitment (”recruit species”). A series of plots are delimited within a locality and all the individuals recruiting and their canopy species are identified; 2) The paired Canopy-Open (pCO) protocol (26 networks) consists in locating a potential canopy plant and identifying recruiting individuals under the canopy and in a nearby open space of the same area; 3) The Georeferenced plot (GP) protocol (11 networks) consists in using information from georeferenced individual plants in large plots to infer canopy-recruit interactions. Some networks incorporate data for both herbs and woody species, while others focus exclusively on woody species. The location of each study site, geographical coordinates, country, locality, responsible author, sampling dates, sampling method and life habit of both canopy and recruit species are provided. This database will allow researchers to test ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary hypotheses related to plant recruitment interactions.

opencc-zeroSep 2022View details →

Native and invaded plant communities alter tick exposure risk via different mechanistic pathways

Plant invasions may alter vector-borne disease risk by modifying microclimates that influence vector survival, or by changing habitat conditions that determine reservoir host use. Here, we evaluated multiple mechanistic pathways by which plant invasion may alter vector-borne disease risk using the common disease vector lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) and the widespread invasive cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) in the southeastern USA. Ticks survived over 50% longer in invaded than native plant species dominated communities, likely due to lower temperature and higher humidity conditions. However, wildlife host activity was higher in native than invaded plant species dominated communities. As a result, host-seeking tick abundances were similar between invaded and native areas, albeit through different mechanisms: longer survival maintained tick abundances in invaded areas while greater host use maintained tick abundance in native areas. Multiple, potentially off-setting mechanistic pathways should be considered when evaluating possible effects of invasive plants on vector-borne disease risk.

Data: Detecting preservation and reintroduction sites for endangered plant species using a two-step modelling and field approach

To withstand the surge of species loss worldwide, (re)introduction of endangered plant species has become an increasingly common technique in conservation biology. Successful (re)introduction plans, however, require identifying sites that provide the optimal ecological conditions for the target species to thrive. In this study, we propose a two-step approach to identify appropriate (re)introduction sites. The first step involves modelling the niche and distribution of the species with bioclimatic and topographical predictors, both at continental and at national scales. The second step consists of refining these bioclimatic predictions by analysing stationary ecological parameters, such as soil conditions, and relating them to population-level fitness values. We demonstrate this methodology using Swiss populations of the lady's slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus L., Orchidaceae), for which conservation plans have existed for years but have generally been unfruitful. Our workflow identified sites for future (re)introductions based on the species requirements for mid-to-sunny light conditions and specific soil physico-chemical properties, such as basic to neutral pH and low soil organic matter content. Our findings show that by combining wide-scale bioclimatic modelling with fine scale field measurements it is possible to carefully identify the ecological requirements of a target species for successful (re)introductions.

Plant characteristics drive ontogenetic changes in herbivory damage in a temperate forest

<ol> <li>Understanding ontogenetic differences in plant defenses and herbivory damage is crucial for obtaining a better understanding of plant life-history strategies, community assembly, and dynamics. Although many studies have compared plant defenses or herbivory damage between ontogenetic stages (e.g., sapling vs. adult), how the effects of plant characteristics on leaf herbivory damage change during plant ontogeny has rarely been examined across species or in a species-rich natural community.</li> <li>To elucidate the effects of plant characteristics, we compared the relationships of leaf herbivory damage with stem density, plant size, and leaf traits between saplings and adults for almost all co-occurring woody species (56 species, ranging from rare to abundant) in a Japanese temperate forest.</li> <li>In most species, adults were larger, fewer in number, and had leaf traits that were potentially less favorable to herbivores (e.g., stronger, or with more phenolics). In contrast, we observed species-specific directions of changes in herbivory damage between adults and saplings with plant phylogeny or density having no clear effect. The relationships between some plant traits and herbivory damage were ontogeny dependent, indicating a shift from chemical to physical defense as plants mature, although most of the species characteristics studied were highly correlated between stages. Such ontogeny-dependent relationships between plant traits and herbivory damage could cause variation in the ontogenetic changes in herbivory damage among species depending on the value of plant traits. Moreover, the direction and magnitude of the effects of ontogenetic differences in species traits on the ontogenetic differences in herbivory damage varied depending on the traits. Together, these factors could have caused the observed ontogenetic changes in herbivory damage among species.</li> <li>Synthesis. Our study demonstrated how relationships between plant characteristics and herbivory damage can change ontogenetically across many coexisting woody species in a forest community, suggesting that plant traits may perform different functions related to herbivory at different ontogenetic stages. This has rarely been considered in previous dualistic comparisons of individual traits and herbivory damage between ontogenetic stages, and it is vital for understanding plant life-history strategies across stages in relationships with herbivores in natural communities.</li> </ol>

Ecuadorian Plant-Hummingbird interactions over an elevation gradient in the Andes, sampled with camera traps in 11 localities

Community ecologists have made great advances in understanding how natural communities can be both diverse and stable by studying communities as interaction networks. However, focus has been on interaction networks aggregated over time, neglecting the consequences of the seasonal organization of interactions, henceforth seasonal structure, for community stability. Here, we extended previous theoretical findings on the topic in two ways: (i) by integrating empirical seasonal structure of 11 plant-hummingbird communities into dynamic models, and (ii) by tackling multiple facets of network stability together. We show that, in a competition context, seasonal structure enhances community stability by allowing diverse and resilient communities while preserving their robustness to species extinctions. The positive effects of empirical seasonal structure on network stability vanished when using randomized seasonal structures, suggesting that eco-evolutionary dynamics produce stabilizing seasonal structures. We also show that the effects of seasonal structure on community stability are mainly mediated by changes in network structure and productivity, suggesting that the seasonal structure of a community is an important and yet neglected aspect in the diversity-stability and diversity-productivity debates.

Data associated to: Uncovering the genomic basis of an extraordinary plant invasion

Invasive species are a key driver of the global biodiversity crisis but the drivers of invasiveness, including the role of pathogens, remain debated. We investigated the genomic basis of invasiveness in Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed), introduced to Europe in the late 19th century, by resequencing 655 ragweed genomes, including 308 herbarium specimens collected up to 190 years ago. In invasive European populations, we found selection signatures in defense genes and lower prevalence of disease-inducing plant pathogens. Together with temporal changes in population structure associated with introgression from closely related Ambrosia species, escape from specific microbial enemies likely favoured the plant's remarkable success as an invasive species.