How Will Global Environmental Changes Affect the Growth of Alien Plants?

Oduor

Zhang

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

258

207

Invasive alien plant species threaten native biodiversity, disrupt ecosystem functions and can cause large economic damage. Plant invasions have been predicted to further increase under ongoing global environmental change. Numerous case studies have compared the performance of invasive and native plant species in response to global environmental change components (i.e. changes in mean levels of precipitation, temperature, atmospheric CO concentration or nitrogen deposition). Individually, these studies usually involve low numbers of species and therefore the results cannot be generalized. Therefore, we performed a phylogenetically controlled meta-analysis to assess whether there is a general pattern of differences in invasive and native plant performance under each component of global environmental change. We compiled a database of studies that reported performance measures for 74 invasive alien plant species and 117 native plant species in response to one of the above-mentioned global environmental change components. We found that elevated temperature and CO enrichment increased the performance of invasive alien plants more strongly than was the case for native plants. Invasive alien plants tended to also have a slightly stronger positive response to increased N deposition and increased precipitation than native plants, but these differences were not significant (N deposition: P = 0.051; increased precipitation: P = 0.679). Invasive alien plants tended to have a slightly stronger negative response to decreased precipitation than native plants, although this difference was also not significant (P = 0.060). So while drought could potentially reduce plant invasion, increases in the four other components of global environmental change considered, particularly global warming and atmospheric CO enrichment, may further increase the spread of invasive plants in the future.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do invasive alien plants benefit more from global environmental change than native plants?

Oduor

Zhang

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

258

207

“…have become common), and some of these invasive species threaten native diversity, disrupt ecosystem services, and cause large economic damage (Vitousek et al 1996;Pimentel, Zuniga & Morrison 2005;Vila et al 2011). Consequently, explaining what makes some alien plant species successful and allows them to displace native plants in the introduced region is an important research topic in ecology (Funk & Vitousek 2007; van Kleunen, Weber & Fischer 2010;Leishman, Thomson & Cooke 2010;Heberling & Fridley 2013;Funk et al 2016;Jia et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of common and rare aliens and natives to nutrient availability and fluctuations

Kleunen

2017

Journal of Ecology

Self Cite

Summary1. Global environmental change not only includes changes in mean environmental conditions but also in temporal environmental fluctuations. Because it is frequently suggested that common species, and particularly invasive alien species, are phenotypically highly plastic, they might benefit more from these fluctuations than rare native and rare alien species. Experimental tests, however, are still lacking.2. Here, we tested whether alien plant species take more advantage of increases in resource levels and fluctuations therein than native species, and whether common species do so more than rare species. Therefore, we grew seven common alien, seven rare alien, nine common native and six rare native herbaceous plants, in one treatment with constantly low nutrient availability and five treatments with high nutrient availability that differed in temporal availability of nutrients (constant, increasing, decreasing, single large pulse, multiple smaller pulses). 3. We found that all species produced more biomass and longer roots, and had a lower root mass fraction under high nutrient conditions than under low nutrient conditions, irrespective of their origin and commonness. Among the high nutrient treatments, the temporal pattern of nutrient supply also influenced biomass production, root allocation and root thickness, but the magnitude and/or directions of these responses varied among the groups of species. Particularly, we found that alien plant species, irrespective of whether they are common or rare, produced more biomass, and had a higher root mass fraction when nutrients were supplied as a single pulse in the middle of the growth period instead of supplied at a constant rate, whereas the reverse was true for the native species. 4. Synthesis. Our study suggests that species origin does not drive differences in plant biomass production, root morphology and allocation in response to changes in mean environmental nutrient availability. However in our study, alien plant species, in contrast to native plant species, benefited from a large nutrient pulse. This suggests that increased fluctuations in nutrient availability might promote alien plant invasions.

“…become invasive; Richardson et al, ) and can cause ecological problems (Vilà et al, ). Furthermore, naturalization and invasion of alien plants are likely to continue due to increased global trade (Seebens et al, ) and ongoing global environmental changes (Jia, Dai, Li, & Liu, ; Liu, Oduor et al, ). As a consequence, the impacts of plant invasions on ecosystems will further increase in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…increased global trade (Seebens et al, 2015) and ongoing global environmental changes (Jia, Dai, Li, & Liu, 2016;Liu, Oduor et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen acquisition of Central European herbaceous plants that differ in their global naturalization success

Kleunen

2019

Functional Ecology

Self Cite

It is frequently assumed that species capable of fast nitrogen (N) acquisition under different N‐availability conditions should have a higher establishment success after their introduction into new regions. However, few experimental studies have explicitly tested this. Our multispecies experiment tested whether global naturalization success of plant species native to Central Europe is related to a high N‐acquisition ability. We selected 41 common herbaceous species native to Germany that have all become naturalized, and thus been introduced, elsewhere. Twenty‐two of these species are widely naturalized and 19 are less widely naturalized. We grew the 41 grassland species, sampled in Germany, under low and high N‐conditions in a greenhouse experiment, and assessed their N‐acquisition abilities. Although the widely naturalized species grew faster on average, they had a significantly lower N‐uptake rate than the less widely naturalized ones. The widely naturalized species, however, had a marginally significantly higher root‐mass fraction. Despite these differences, the total plant N‐content did on average not differ between the two groups of species. However, N‐addition tended to increase the total plant N‐content more for the widely naturalized species than for the less widely naturalized species. Nitroge addition also increased biomass production and N‐uptake rate, and decreased the root‐mass fraction of plants, but these responses did not differ between widely and less widely naturalized species. We conclude that although fast‐growing species tend to have a higher global naturalization success than slow‐growing species, the naturalization success of plants is not necessarily related to a high N‐acquisition ability. A plain language summary is available for this article.