Fine‐scale variables associated with the presence of native forbs in natural temperate grassland

Johnson, David P.; Driscoll, Don A.; Catford, Jane A.; Gibbons, Philip

doi:10.1111/aec.12866

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…Generally, increased light availability is expected to facilitate recruitment (e.g. Johnson et al., 2020). However, nitrogen rather than light is the key limiting resource at Cedar Creek (Tilman, 1990).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Brian,

Shepherd,

Pérez‐Navarro

et al. 2024

Journal of Ecology

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Plant enemies can influence plant community assembly and structure. However, it is unclear how insect herbivores and fungal pathogens affect seedling recruitment. Complex interactions with competition and resource availability make it difficult to isolate the effect of enemies. This uncertainty can impede understanding of community assembly drivers, species coexistence and trophic interactions; and limits hypothesis testing such as of the enemy release hypothesis, a key hypothesis in invasion biology. Using a novel species‐specific approach, we examine how enemies affect seedling survival and recruitment of 16 grassland species. We planted seedlings of 16 native species from two functional groups (C4 grasses and non‐legume forbs) into two grassland sites (early and mid‐succession). We hand‐painted 1512 individual seedlings with pesticides (insecticide and fungicide) over the course of one growing season to enforce aboveground species‐specific release from enemies and tested whether it enhanced survival relative to untreated controls. Applying treatments to individuals allowed us to test for the effect of enemies on plant performance while controlling for contexts such as competition from the resident community and resource levels. Release from insects increased seedling survival by 56% on average, with no additional benefit of release from fungal pathogens. This effect was observed for both forbs and C4 grasses across both sites and was strongest in resource‐acquisitive species. There was no effect of the mean phylogenetic distance between our target species and the resident plant community, or of light availability or soil moisture. Synthesis. The significant positive effect of release from insect herbivores on survival early in colonisation—a trend that held across functional groups and types of resident community—suggests insects play an important regulatory role in community assembly, especially for resource‐acquisitive species. As variation between species could be explained by traits but not by phylogeny, we emphasise the importance of trait‐based approaches to plant community ecology. Our results also support the key mechanism (increased performance following release from enemies) underlying the enemy release hypothesis. Enemy release may therefore aid initial recruitment of plants during the invasion process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generally, increased light availability is expected to facilitate recruitment (e.g. Johnson et al, 2020).…”

Section: Question 2: How Do the Benefits Of Release Vary With Communi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Brian,

Shepherd,

Pérez‐Navarro

et al. 2024

Journal of Ecology

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“…2a) (e.g. Johnson et al ., 2020). Similarly, mid succession communities tend to be more species-rich and nutrient-poor than early succession communities, characteristics that increase resistance to invasion and colonisation (Fridley et al ., 2007; Catford et al ., 2020; Liu et al ., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aboveground enemy release increases seedling survival in grasslands

Brian,

Shepherd,

Pérez-Navarro

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The enemy release hypothesis is a popular hypothesis to explain the success of invasive plants. Enemy release studies typically focus on single species or types of communities, feature indirect experimental manipulations that apply pesticides to whole communities not individual species, and only examine responses of established plants or plant populations, limiting their generality. Using a novel species-specific approach, we examine whether enemy release can enhance seedling survival and recruitment of 16 grassland species by experimentally linking enemy release with enhanced plant performance.We planted seedlings of 16 native grassland species from two functional groups (C4 grasses and non-legume forbs) into two grassland sites (early and mid succession). We hand-painted 1,548 individual seedlings with pesticides (insecticide and fungicide) over the course of a growing season to enforce aboveground species-specific enemy release, and tested whether it enhanced survival relative to untreated controls. Using native species enabled us to directly test effects of enemy release, while avoiding confounding factors like unknown invasion histories. Of the 16 native study species, 13 are naturalised/invasive outside of their native ranges.Release from insects increased seedling survival by 80% on average, with no additional benefit of release from fungal pathogens. This effect was consistent across functional groups and community successional stages, and was strongest in resource-acquisitive species. The size of species’ performance benefits from enemy release were positively correlated with the number of regions globally where each species has been introduced and naturalised.Synthesis. Previous studies of enemy release have centred on adults and findings have varied among species. We found a positive effect of release from insect herbivores early in colonisation – a trend that held across functional groups and types of resident community. We posit that the consistent vulnerability of seedlings vis-à-vis later life stages leads to this more ubiquitous benefit of enemy release. Enemy release may therefore aid initial recruitment of most, if not all, plants during the invasion process, even if enemies rapidly accumulate. The positive correlations between the benefits of enemy release for seedlings, species’ life history strategies and global naturalisation patterns provide compelling hypotheses for future research.

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“…At a global scale, predictors that relate to land use are often inferred from remotely sensed land cover data (see Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu). We also envisage the potential to explore more ecologically relevant predictor variables that may be more suited to explain patterns in forb and grass richness and cover as these smaller growth forms may need to be modelled at a finer scale (Kelemen et al 2013;Johnson et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extending vegetation site data and ensemble models to predict patterns of foliage cover and species richness for plant functional groups

et al. 2021

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Context Ensembles of artificial neural network models can be trained to predict the continuous characteristics of vegetation such as the foliage cover and species richness of different plant functional groups. Objectives Our first objective was to synthesise existing site-based observations of native plant species to quantify summed percentage foliage cover and species richness within four functional groups and in totality. Secondly, we generated spatially-explicit, continuous, landscape-scale models of these functional groups, accompanied by maps of the model residuals to show uncertainty. Methods Using a case study from New South Wales, Australia, we aggregated floristic observations from 6806 sites into four common plant growth forms (trees, shrubs, grasses and forbs) representing four different functional groups. We coupled these response data with spatially-complete surfaces describing environmental predictors and predictors that reflect landscape-scale disturbance. We predicted the distribution of foliage cover and species richness of these four plant functional groups over 1.5 million hectares. Importantly, we display spatially explicit model residuals so that end-users have a tangible and transparent means of assessing model uncertainty. Results Models of richness generally performed well (R2 0.43–0.63), whereas models of cover were more variable (R2 0.12–0.69). RMSD ranged from 1.42 (tree richness) to 29.86 (total native cover). MAE ranged from 1.0 (tree richness) to 20.73 (total native foliage cover). Conclusions Continuous maps of vegetation attributes can add considerable value to existing maps and models of discrete vegetation classes and provide ecologically informative data to support better decisions across multiple spatial scales.

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Fine‐scale variables associated with the presence of native forbs in natural temperate grassland

Cited by 5 publications

References 84 publications

Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Aboveground enemy release increases seedling survival in grasslands

Extending vegetation site data and ensemble models to predict patterns of foliage cover and species richness for plant functional groups

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