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634 results for “Plant invasions”
Data from: Invasive alien plants benefit more from clonal integration in heterogeneous environments than natives
What confers invasive alien plants a competitive advantage over native plants remains open to debate. Many of the world's worst invasive alien plants are clonal and able to share resources within clones (clonal integration), particularly in heterogeneous environments. Here, we tested the hypothesis that clonal integration benefits invasive clonal plants more than natives and thus confers invasives a competitive advantage. We selected five congeneric and naturally co-occurring pairs of invasive alien and native clonal plants in China, and grew pairs of connected and disconnected ramets under heterogeneous light, soil nutrient and water conditions that are commonly encountered by alien plants during their invasion into new areas. Clonal integration increased biomass of all plants in all three heterogeneous resource environments. However, invasive plants benefited more from clonal integration than natives. Consequently, invasive plants produced more biomass than natives. Our results indicate that clonal integration may confer invasive alien clonal plants a competitive advantage over natives. Therefore, differences in the ability of clonal integration could potentially explain, at least partly, the invasion success of alien clonal plants in areas where resources are heterogeneously distributed.
Data from: Digital photography provides a fast, reliable and non-invasive method to estimate anthocyanin pigment concentration in reproductive and vegetative plant tissues
1. Anthocyanin pigments have become a model trait for evolutionary ecology since they often provide adaptive benefits for plants. Anthocyanins have been traditionally quantified biochemically, or more recently using spectral reflectance. However, both methods require destructive sampling and can be labour intensive and challenging with small samples. Recent advances in digital photography and image processing make it the method of choice for measuring colour in the wild. Here, we use digital images as a quick, non-invasive method to estimate relative anthocyanin concentration among plants exhibiting colour variation. 2. By using a consumer-level digital camera and a free image processing toolbox, we extracted RGB values from digital images to generate colour indices. We tested petals, stems, pedicels and calyces of six species, which contain different types of anthocyanin pigments and exhibit different pigmentation patterns. Colour indices were assessed by their correlation to biochemically determined anthocyanin concentration. For comparison, we also calculated colour indices from spectral reflectance and tested the correlation with anthocyanin concentration. 3. Indices perform differently depending on the nature of the colour variation. For both digital images and spectral reflectance, the most accurate estimates of anthocyanin concentration emerge from anthocyanin content-chroma ratio (ACCR), anthocyanin-chroma basic (ACCB) and strength of green (S green) indices. Some colour indices derived from digital images and spectral reflectance strongly correlate with biochemically determined anthocyanin concentration, but the estimates from digital images performed better than spectral reflectance in terms of 2 and normalized root-mean-square error. This was particularly noticeable in a species with striped petals, but in the case of striped calyces both methods showed a comparable relationship with anthocyanin concentration. 4. Using digital images brings new opportunities to accurately quantify the anthocyanin concentration in both floral and vegetative tissues. This method is efficient, completely non-invasive, applicable to both uniform and patterned colour, and works with samples of any size.
Data from: Invasive mutualisms between a plant pathogen and insect vectors in the Middle East and Brazil
Complex multi-trophic interactions in vectorborne diseases limit our understanding and ability to predict outbreaks. Arthropod-vectored pathogens are especially problematic, with the potential for novel interspecific interactions during invasions. Variations and novelties in plant–arthropod–pathogen triumvirates present significant threats to global food security. We examined aspects of a phytoplasma pathogen of citrus across two continents. 'Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia' causes Witches' Broom Disease of Lime (WBDL) and has devastated citrus production in the Middle East. A variant of this phytoplasma currently displays asymptomatic or 'silent' infections in Brazil. We first studied vector capacity and fitness impacts of the pathogen on its vectors. The potential for co-occurring weed species to act as pathogen reservoirs was analysed and key transmission periods in the year were also studied. We demonstrate that two invasive hemipteran insects—Diaphorina citri and Hishimonus phycitis—can vector the phytoplasma. Feeding on phytoplasma-infected hosts greatly increased reproduction of its invasive vector D. citri both in Oman and Brazil; suggesting that increased fitness of invasive insect vectors thereby further increases the pathogen's capacity to spread. Based on our findings, this is a robust system for studying the effects of invasions on vectorborne diseases and highlights concerns about its spread to warmer, drier regions of Brazil.
Data from: Consequences of plant invasions on compartmentalization and species' roles in plant–pollinator networks
Compartmentalization—the organization of ecological interaction networks into subsets of species that do not interact with other subsets (true compartments) or interact more frequently among themselves than with other species (modules)—has been identified as a key property for the functioning, stability and evolution of ecological communities. Invasions by entomophilous invasive plants may profoundly alter the way interaction networks are compartmentalized. We analysed a comprehensive dataset of 40 paired plant–pollinator networks (invaded versus uninvaded) to test this hypothesis. We show that invasive plants have higher generalization levels with respect to their pollinators than natives. The consequences for network topology are that—rather than displacing native species from the network—plant invaders attracting pollinators into invaded modules tend to play new important topological roles (i.e. network hubs, module hubs and connectors) and cause role shifts in native species, creating larger modules that are more connected among each other. While the number of true compartments was lower in invaded compared with uninvaded networks, the effect of invasion on modularity was contingent on the study system. Interestingly, the generalization level of the invasive plants partially explains this pattern, with more generalized invaders contributing to a lower modularity. Our findings indicate that the altered interaction structure of invaded networks makes them more robust against simulated random secondary species extinctions, but more vulnerable when the typically highly connected invasive plants go extinct first. The consequences and pathways by which biological invasions alter the interaction structure of plant–pollinator communities highlighted in this study may have important dynamical and functional implications, for example, by influencing multi-species reciprocal selection regimes and coevolutionary processes.
Data from: Limits to future adaptation in the invasive plant Polygonum cespitosum: expression of functional and fitness traits at elevated CO2
For organisms to adapt to future environments, they must both evolve appropriate functional responses and phenotypically express those responses under future climatic and CO2 conditions. We examined these 2 components of future adaptation in an invasive annual plant (Polygonum cespitosum) by performing a "resurrection" experiment under field conditions simulating a future environment. Resurrection experiments reveal recent evolution by comparing genotypes from natural populations sampled across a multigeneration interval. We collected genotypes from the same 3 North American populations in 1994 and 2005 and raised inbred lines from these collections under free air CO2 enrichment to examine functional and fitness traits expressed in hot, dry conditions at both ambient and elevated CO2 (N = 295 plants). The species has rapidly evolved in its introduced range to increase photosynthetic rate (collection year effect P ≤ 0.011) and delay senescence (P = 0.017) under full-sun, dry field conditions, but these adaptive changes were not expressed when the field environment included elevated CO2 (within-treatment year effect P ≥ 0.20 for both traits). Populations showed different levels of reproductive output and its genetic variance in these novel, stressful conditions. These findings illustrate constraints on evolutionary adaptation to predicted future conditions at both the species and population levels.
Data from: Syndromes in suites of correlated traits suggest multiple mechanisms facilitating invasion in a plant range-expander
Various mechanisms can facilitate the success of plant invasions simultaneously, but may be difficult to disentangle. We compared plants of the range-expanding species Bunias orientalis from populations of native, invasive and exotic, not yet invasive origin in a field common garden over two years. Plants were grown under two nitrate-regimes and multiple traits regarding growth, defence, antagonist loads and reproduction were measured. We used a rank-based clustering approach to assign correlated traits to distinct suites. These suites were analysed for "syndromes" that are expressed as a function of population origin and/or fertilisation treatment and might represent different invasion mechanisms. Indeed, distinct suites of traits were differentially affected by these factors. Our results suggest that different pre-adaptation properties, such as certain growth characteristics and intraspecific chemical variation, as well as post-introduction adaptations to antagonists and resource availability in novel habitats are candidate mechanisms that facilitate the success of invasive B. orientalis in parallel. We conclude that rank-based clustering is a robust and expedient approach to integrate multiple traits for elucidating invasion syndromes within individual species. Studying a multitude of traits at different life-history and establishment stages of plants grown under distinct resource treatments reveals species-specific trade-offs and resource sinks and simplifies the interpretation of single trait functions for plant invasiveness.
Data from: Community-level flammability declines over 25 years of plant invasion in grasslands
1. Exotic plant invasions can alter fire regimes in plant communities. Invaders often possess traits that differ from native plants in the community, resulting in increases or declines in community-level flammability, changing fire regimes, and potentially causing long-term modifications to plant community composition. Although considering traits of multiple invaders and native species together is useful to better understand how invasions change community-level flammability, few studies have done this. 2 Measured morphological and flammability traits of 51 native and exotic plant species common in tussock grasslands in New Zealand's south-eastern South Island to examine relationships between morphology and whole-plant and shoot-level flammability. Plant community data from 103 permanent transects in this region measured over a 25 year period (c. 1982-2007) were used to determine how flammability changed with increasing levels of plant invasion. 3. Invasion by exotic plants has led to reduced community-level flammability due to shifts from native tussock grasses with high flammability and high fuel loads to mat-forming exotic forbs with low flammability and little fuel. These changes will likely lead to considerable alterations to the fire regime, resulting in lower intensity fires that burn more patchily and for shorter amounts of time, potentially causing further changes in floristic composition. We found considerable differences in flammability across the wide range of species and growth forms that we studied, emphasising the importance of quantifying species-level flammability and the need to avoid treating grasslands as homogenous in terms of their flammability. Total biomass, leaf length and leaf area were the traits most positively correlated with flammability in these tussock grasslands. 4. SYNTHESIS. We show how plant invasions over decadal timescales have reduced the community-level flammability of tussock grasslands and, for the first time, demonstrate how this can be driven by exotic forbs. The total biomass of constituent species is a useful surrogate for community flammability across a wide range of species and growth forms in both temperate grasslands and savanna ecosystems and should be used in dynamic global vegetation models to assess how flammability varies under various global change scenarios.
Data from: No evidence that plant-soil feedback effects of native and invasive plant species under greenhouse conditions are reflected in the field
Plant–soil feedback (PSF) may affect above-ground higher trophic levels in glasshouse experiments, but evidence from field studies on the relevance of these multitrophic interactions for plant performance is lacking. Therefore, we examined whether PSF effects of several native and invasive plant species occur also in the field and influence plant damage by above-ground herbivores. Root zone soil from an abandoned urban field was used as inocula for the PSF experiment. First, we grew eight urban grassland plant species (five natives and three invasive species) separately in a glasshouse, with soil biota communities conditioned by the respective species itself ('home soil') or by a mixture of all other species ('foreign soil'). After 13 weeks, one cohort of the plants was placed on an urban field in Berlin to assess damage by naturally colonizing herbivores, while another cohort of the plants stayed in the glasshouse. We observed that the extent of the PSF effects differed between the field and glasshouse cohorts of plants. While we found positive PSF responses for five of the eight plant species in the glasshouse, we found no PSF effects in the field. Further, there was no trend that invasive or native species differed in the direction or extent of PSF responses. Concerning the leaf damage by herbivores of the field plants, we found no evidence that the soil history (home vs. foreign soil) affected the effects of above-ground herbivores on the plants. Synthesis. We conclude that PSF effects are more likely to be found under glasshouse conditions. In the field, PSFs seem to play a minor role for the selected urban grassland species. More generally, our study highlights the need to focus on PSFs under natural conditions and in natural communities (including higher trophic levels), which is often overlooked in PSF research.
Data from: Adaptive and non-adaptive evolution of trait means and genetic trait correlations for herbivory resistance and performance in an invasive plant
The EICA-hypothesis predicts that invading plants adapt to their novel environment by evolving increased performance and reduced resistance in response to the release from natural enemies, and assumes a resource allocation tradeoff among both trait groups as mechanistic basis of this evolutionary change. Using the plant Silene latifolia as a study system, we tested these predictions by investigating whether 1) invasive populations evolved lower resistance and higher performance, 2) this evolutionary change is indeed adaptive, and 3) there is a negative genetic correlation among performance and resistance (i.e. a tradeoff) in native and introduced individuals. We sampled eight native and eight invasive populations and determined their population co-ancestry based on neutral SSR-markers. We performed controlled crossings to produce five sib-groups per population and exposed them to increased and reduced levels of enemy attack in a full-factorial experiment to estimate performance and resistance. With these data, we performed trait-by-trait comparisons between ranges with 'animal models' that account for population co-ancestry to quantify the amount of variance in traits explained by non-adaptive vs. adaptive evolution. Moreover, we tested for genetic correlations among performance and resistance traits within sib-groups. We found significant reductions in resistance and increases in performance in invasive versus native populations, which could largely be attributed to adaptive evolution. While we detected a non-significant trend towards negative genetic performance × resistance correlations in native populations, invasive populations exhibited both significant and non-significant positive correlations. In summary, these results do not support a shift of performance and resistance trait values along a tradeoff line in response to enemy release, as predicted EICA. They rather suggest that the independent evolution of both traits is not constrained by a tradeoff, and that various selective agents (including resource availability) interact in shaping both traits and in weakening negative genetic correlations in the invaded habitat.
Data from: Soil-mediated eco-evolutionary feedbacks in the invasive plant Alliaria petiolata
Ecological and evolutionary processes historically have been assumed to operate on significantly different time scales. We know now from theory and work in experimental and model systems that these processes can feed back on each other on mutually relevant time scales. Here, we present evidence of a soil-mediated eco-evolutionary feedback on the population dynamics of an invasive biennial plant, Alliaria petiolata. As populations age, natural selection drives down production of A. petiolata's important anti-mycorrhizal allelochemical, sinigrin. This occurs due to density dependent selection on sinigrin, which is favored under interspecific, but disfavored under intraspecific, competition. We show that population stochastic growth rates (λS) and plant densities are positively related to sinigrin concentration measured in seedling roots. This interaction is mediated by sinigrin's positive effect on seedling and summer survival, which are important drivers of λS. Together, these illustrate how the evolution of a trait shaped by natural selection can influence the ecology of a species over a period of just years to decades, altering its trajectory of population growth and interactions with the species in the soil and plant communities it invades. Our findings confirm predictions that eco-evolutionary feedbacks occur in natural populations. Furthermore, they improve our conceptual framework for projecting future population growth by linking variation in plant demography to a critical competitive trait (sinigrin) whose selective advantages decrease as populations age.
Data from: A native plant competitor mediates the impact of above- and belowground damage on an invasive tree
Plant competition may mediate the impacts of herbivory on invasive plant species through effects on plant growth and defense. This may predictably depend on whether herbivory occurs above- or belowground and on relative plant competitive ability. We simulated the potential impact of above- or belowground damage by biocontrol agents on the growth of a woody invader (Chinese tallow tree, Triadica sebifera) through artificial herbivory, with or without competition with a native grass, little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). We measured two defense responses of Triadica through quantifying constitutive and induced extrafloral nectar production and tolerance of above- and belowground damage (root and shoot biomass regrowth). We examined genetic variation in plant growth and defense across native (China) and invasive (US) Triadica populations. Without competition, aboveground damage had a greater impact than belowground damage on Triadica performance, whereas with competition, above- and belowground damage impacted Triadica similarly. Whole plant tolerance to damage belowground was negatively associated with tolerance to grass competitors indicating tradeoffs in the ability to tolerate herbivory versus compete. Competition reduced investment in defensive extrafloral nectar (EFN) production. Aboveground damage inhibited rather than induced EFN production while belowground plant damage did not impact aboveground nectar production. We found some support for the evolution of increased competitive ability hypothesis for invasive plants as US plants were larger than native China plants and were more plastic in their response to biotic stressors than China plants (they altered their root to shoot ratios dependent on herbivory and competition treatments). Our results indicate that habitat type and the presence of competitors may be a larger determinant of herbivory impact than feeding mode and suggest that integrated pest management strategies including competitive dynamics of recipient communities should be incorporated into biological control agent evaluation at earlier stages.
Data from: Invasive plants have scale-dependent effects on diversity by altering species-area relationships
Although invasive plant species often reduce diversity, they rarely cause plant extinctions. We surveyed paired invaded and uninvaded plant communities from three biomes. We reconcile the discrepancy in diversity loss from invaders by showing that invaded communities have lower local richness but steeper species accumulation with area than that of uninvaded communities, leading to proportionately fewer species loss at broader spatial scales. We show that invaders drive scale-dependent biodiversity loss through strong neutral sampling effects on the number of individuals in a community. We also show that nonneutral species extirpations are due to a proportionately larger effect of invaders on common species, suggesting that rare species are buffered against extinction. Our study provides a synthetic perspective on the threat of invasions to biodiversity loss across spatial scales.
Supplementary material 1 from: Guo X, Liu X-Y, Jiang S-Y, Guo S-X, Wang J-F, Hu Y, Li S-M, Li H-M, Wang T, Sun Y-K, Li M-Y (2023) Allelopathy and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi interactions shape plant invasion outcomes. NeoBiota 89: 187-207. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.89.110737
Responses of the aboveground biomass of native plant species to the allelopathy (n = 10)
Supplementary material 1 from: Bhatta S, Shrestha BB, Pyšek P (2023) Invasive alien plants in South Asia: Impacts and management. NeoBiota 88: 135-167. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.88.104118
372 papers were used for the analysis
Supplementary material 1 from: Těšitelová T, Knotková K, Knotek A, Cempírková H, Těšitel J (2024) Root hemiparasites suppress invasive alien clonal plants: evidence from a cultivation experiment. NeoBiota 90: 97-121. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.90.113069
Supplementary information
Supplementary material 2 from: Těšitelová T, Knotková K, Knotek A, Cempírková H, Těšitel J (2024) Root hemiparasites suppress invasive alien clonal plants: evidence from a cultivation experiment. NeoBiota 90: 97-121. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.90.113069
Primary data table
Supplementary material 1 from: Vilà M, Trillo A, Castro-Díez P, Gallardo B, Bacher S (2024) Field studies of the ecological impacts of invasive plants in Europe. NeoBiota 90: 139-159. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.90.112368
Supplementary information
Supplementary material 1 from: Gruntman M, Segev U (2024) Effect of residence time on trait evolution in invasive plants: review and meta-analysis. NeoBiota 91: 99-124. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.91.109251
Supplementary information
Supplementary material 1 from: Martín-Forés I, Guerin GR, Lewis D, Gallagher RV, Vilà M, Catford JA, Pauchard A, Sparrow B (2024) Towards integrating and harmonising information on plant invasions across Australia. NeoBiota 92: 61-83. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.92.113013
Supplementary information
Evaluation of foliar fungus-mediated interactions with below- and aboveground enemies of the invasive plant Ageratina adenophora
<p>Plant–fungal associations are frequently key drivers of plant invasion success. Foliar fungi can benefit their invasive hosts by enhancing growth promotion, disease resistance and environmental stress tolerance. However, the roles of foliar fungi may vary when a given invasive plant faces different stresses. In this study, we designed three independent experiments to evaluate the effects of a foliar fungus, <i>Colletotrichum</i> sp., on the growth performance of the invasive plant <i>Ageratina adenophora</i> under different soil conditions, as well as the responses of <i>A. adenophora</i> to the foliar fungal pathogen <i>Diaporthe helianthi</i> and to herbivory. We found that the soil type was the most influential factor for the growth of <i>A. adenophora</i>. The role of the foliar fungus <i>Colletotrichum</i> sp. varied in the different soil types but generally adversely affected leaf development in <i>A. adenophora</i>. <i>Colletotrichum</i> sp. may be a weak latent foliar pathogen that can enhance the pathogenicity of <i>D. helianthi</i> on leaves of <i>A. adenophora</i> and marginally reduce signs of herbivory by natural insects in the wild on <i>A. adenophora</i> seedlings.In general, the benefits of the foliar fungus<i> Colletotrichum</i> to the fitness of <i>A. adenophora</i> are not significant in the context of this experimental design. However, our data highlight the need to consider both aboveground and belowground biota in different soil habitats when evaluating the effects of foliar fungi.</p>
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