Common alien plants are more competitive than rare natives but not than common natives

Zhang, Zhijie J.; Kleunen, Mark van

doi:10.1111/ele.13320

Cited by 78 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(89 reference statements)

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“…The similar aboveground biomass of aliens and natives on soil that had not been conditioned or had been conditioned by native plants, indicates that on those soils aliens are not more competitive than natives. This result is in line with the recent finding that alien and native species do not differ in their competitive abilities if both of them are widespread and abundant species 5 . However, on soil conditioned by aliens, aliens were more competitive than natives.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…This method has two advantages. First, it better mimics the dynamics of species populations across space and time 5,47 . Second, it should increase the precision of estimating competitive outcomes 45 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since then, hundreds of experiments have studied competition between native and alien species. Now we know that many successful alien species are indeed more competitive than natives 3-5 . Most studies, however, focused on pairwise interactions 6 (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil-microbes-mediated invasional meltdown in plants

Zhang

Liu

Brunel

et al. 2020

Preprint

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13Invasive alien species are frequently assumed to be more competitive than natives. 14 Hundreds of experiments have investigated this using pairs of species. However, species 15 compete in highly diverse communities, and it remains unknown whether invasive aliens 16 are more competitive than natives in multispecies communities. We tested whether and 17 how a third plant species affects the competition between alien and native plants through 18 plant-soil feedback. We first conditioned soil with one of ten species (six natives and four 19 aliens) or without plants. Then, we grew on these 11 soils, five aliens and five natives 20 without competition, and with intra-or interspecific competition (all pairwise alien-native 21 combinations). Overall, aliens were not more competitive than natives when grown on 22 soil conditioned by other natives or on non-conditioned soil. However, aliens were more 23 competitive than natives on soil conditioned by other aliens. Soil conditioned by aliens 24 changed the competitive outcomes by affecting intrinsic growth rates (i.e. growth rates 25 without competition) of aliens less negatively than that of natives, rather than by affecting 26 the strength of competition. Rhizosphere-microbiome analysis indicated that the less 27 negative effect of aliens on other aliens is mediated by fungal endophytes. The 28 dissimilarity of fungal endophyte communities, which positively correlated with strength 29 of plant-soil feedback, was higher between two aliens than between aliens and natives. 30Our study suggests that coexistence between alien and native plants might be less likely 31 with more aliens. Such invasional meltdown through plant-soil feedback is most likely 32 mediated by spill-over of fungal endophytes. 33 34 Keywords: enemy release, invasion, invasional meltdown, microbes, multispecies, 35 novelty, plant-soil feedback 36 competition, or how individuals tolerate and suppress others) may be modified by a third 60 species 16,17 (Fig. 1b&c). For example, it was shown that Skeletonema costatum, a 61 cosmopolitan diatom, does not directly affect the growth of Karenia brevis, a dominant 62 dinoflagellate in the Gulf of Mexico, but undermines the allelopathic effects of K. 63 brevis 18 . This would also lessen the effect of K. brevis on other phytoplankton species, 64 and interactions might consequently not always remain pairwise. Therefore, we need to 65 study explicitly how a third species can affect the competition between alien and native 66 species. 67Plant competition occurs through different processes, which makes it more 68 challenging to study. The most widely studied process is resource competition 19 , partly 69 because competition for space, food and other resources is the most intuitive. 70Nevertheless, growing evidence shows that resource use alone cannot always explain 71 success of alien species [20][21][22] . Competition can also act through other trophic levels, such 72 as soil microbes. We already know that plants species modify soil microbial communities 73 with c...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil-microbes-mediated invasional meltdown in plants

Zhang

Liu

Brunel

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…We found, averaged across the six alien target species, no significant effect of the presence of native competitors on any of the performance measures. Although recent studies have shown that invasive alien plants are usually less strongly affected by competition than non-invasive alien or native plants [27][28][29], our finding of no significant competitor-presence effect is nevertheless surprising. A closer look at the individual alien target species, however, showed variation in their responses to the presence of competitors.…”

Section: Effect Of Competition On Target Performancecontrasting

confidence: 89%

Effect of Competition from Native on Alien Species in a Multitrophic Setting

Malecore

Kleunen²

2019

Preprint

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1. Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis predicts that alien species closely related to native species are less likely to naturalize because of strong competition due to niche overlap. Closely related species are likely to attract similar herbivores and to release similar plant volatiles following herbivore attack, thus could attract the same predators. However, the importance of phylogenetic relatedness on the interaction between alien and native plants has never been tested in a multitrophic context. 2. In a mesocosm experiment we grew six alien target plant species alone and in competition with nine native plant species of varying phylogenetic relatedness. To test the effects of multitrophic interactions on the performance of alien target species, we used enclosure cages to expose plants to the presence and absence of herbivorous arthropods, predatory arthropods and nematodes. 3. Surprisingly, biomass and number of flowering structures increased with presence of competitors for some of the alien species, but overall there was no consistent competition effect. Similarly, we found that none of the multitrophic-interaction treatments affected survival, biomass or number of flowering structures of the alien species. 4. We conclude there was no significant relationship between performance measures of the alien species and their phylogenetic relatedness to the native competitors.

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“…Whether global change has similar effects on exotic and native species, however, is an open question (Hulme et al, 2015;Macdougall & Turkington, 2005;Russell & Blackburn, 2017). Many global change factors accelerate the competitive displacement of native species by invasive species (Bradley, Blumenthal, Wilcove, & Ziska, 2010;Liu, Oduor, Zhang, & Manea, 2017), but these factors can also influence the interactions among native species, altering winners and losers in native assemblages (Brooker, 2006;Dawson et al, 2012;Thomas & Palmer, 2015;Zhang & van Kleunen, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in multiple environmental factors additively enhance the dominance of an exotic plant with a novel trade‐off pattern

et al. 2020

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Whether global changes impact native and exotic species differently is unclear, because the changes may favour both native and exotic species over competitors. Previous studies have mainly focused on the separate effects of different environmental changes, but plant communities are influenced by the changes in multiple environmental factors, and it is still unclear whether native and exotic species respond similar to the combined effects of these factors. We hypothesized that differences in interspecific trade‐offs between native and exotic species can lead to the dominance of exotic species when the species are simultaneously subjected to multiple environmental changes. Using coastal saltmarsh plant communities as the study system, we experimentally manipulated flooding and nutrient enrichment, examined the interspecific trade‐offs between competitiveness and stress tolerance for two native and one exotic species, and explored the combined effect of the two environmental changes on both native–native and native–exotic species interactions. We found that flooding and nutrient enrichment oppositely affected native–native species interactions but additively affected native–exotic species interactions. The two factors together resulted in no net change in the relative advantages between the two native species but enhanced the dominance of the exotic species over the native species. This disparity occurred because the exotic species was not subject to the interspecific trade‐off between competitiveness and stress tolerance that constrained the native species. Synthesis. Our results suggest that changes in multiple environmental factors favour exotic species because of evolutionary novel trade‐off patterns. Mechanisms underlying species coexistence in the invaded community such as interspecific trade‐offs need to be considered when future attempts are made to predict the effects of global changes on biological invasions.

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Common alien plants are more competitive than rare natives but not than common natives

Cited by 78 publications

References 55 publications

Soil-microbes-mediated invasional meltdown in plants

Soil-microbes-mediated invasional meltdown in plants

Effect of Competition from Native on Alien Species in a Multitrophic Setting

Changes in multiple environmental factors additively enhance the dominance of an exotic plant with a novel trade‐off pattern

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