Differential influence of four invasive plant species on soil physicochemical properties in a pot experiment

Abstract

Purpose This study compared the effects of four invasive plants, namely Impatiens glandulifera, Reynoutria japonica, Rudbeckia laciniata, and Solidago gigantea, as well as two native species-Artemisia vulgaris, Phalaris arundinacea, and their mixture on soil physicochemical properties in a pot experiment. Materials and methods Plants were planted in pots in two loamy sand soils. The soils were collected from fallows located outside (fallow soil) and within river valley (valley soil) under native plant communities. Aboveground plant biomass, cover, and soil physicochemical properties such as nutrient concentrations, pH, and water holding capacity (WHC) were measured after two growing seasons. Discriminant analysis (DA) was used to identify soil variables responsible for the discrimination between plant treatments. Identified variables were further compared between treatments using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's HSD test. Results and discussion Plant biomass, cover, and soil parameters depended on species and soil type. DA effectively separated soils under different plant species.

Do the impacts of alien invasive plants differ from expansive native ones? An experimental study on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi communities

“…30 cm of soil was collected. The soils were classified as loamy sand (Stefanowicz et al 2018). The physicochemical properties, namely pH; organic C (C ORG ) content; total ( T ) contents of C T , N T , Ca T , K T , and P T ; and exchangeable/available ( EX ) contents of Ca EX , K EX , N (N-NO 3 − , N-NH 4 + ), and P EX , of the initial soils were examined prior to our experiment.…”

“…The physicochemical properties, namely pH; organic C (C ORG ) content; total ( T ) contents of C T , N T , Ca T , K T , and P T ; and exchangeable/available ( EX ) contents of Ca EX , K EX , N (N-NO 3 − , N-NH 4 + ), and P EX , of the initial soils were examined prior to our experiment. Moreover, we conducted the same analyses at the end of the experiment to determine potential invasive/native plant-induced changes in soil properties (Stefanowicz et al 2018). …”

“…The shoots and roots were washed separately in tap water. The dry weight of aboveground parts of plants was measured (Stefanowicz et al 2018). Belowground parts of plants were taken for staining in order to determine the presence of AMF.…”

“…100 g for PLFA analyses (see below), and (4) ca. 1000 g for physicochemical analyses (Stefanowicz et al 2018). Phillips and Hayman (1970) method with minor modifications (Majewska et al 2015) was used for staining of invasive and native plant roots.…”

“…One of the mechanisms leading to the success of invasive plant species is that invaders change the components of soil environment due to, e.g., the release of secondary metabolites as root exudates and through deposition of litter of various quality and quantity and different uptake or immobilization of nutrients, as well as differential C provision to symbiotic fungi (Wolfe and Klironomos 2005;Stinson et al 2006;Cantor et al 2011;Perkins and Nowak 2012;Tanner and Gange 2013). These can modify the chemical and microbiological properties of soils (Batten et al 2006;Shah et al 2009;Stefanowicz et al 2016Stefanowicz et al , 2017Stefanowicz et al , 2018, including the alterations in the abundance and species diversity of the most widespread and important plant symbionts-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) (Sanon et al 2012;Tanner and Gange 2013;Zubek et al 2016). These fungi inhabit the roots of a great majority of terrestrial plant species and play an important role in their Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-018-1283-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”