Seed-Dispersal Ability of the Invasive Perennial Vines Vincetoxicum nigrum and Vincetoxicum rossicum

Abstract

Black swallowwort [Vincetoxicum nigrum (L.) Moench] and pale swallowwort [Vincetoxicum rossicum (Kleopow) Barb.] are perennial vines of European origin that invade natural areas and perennial cropping systems in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Both species reproduce via wind-dispersed seeds in the form of achenes with comas, but little is known about the extent of dispersal of these seeds. We studied the relationship of seed release height (0.75 m, 2 m), wind speed at the time of release, seed mass, and settling rate on distance traveled. Vincetoxicum nigrum and V. rossicum seeds traveled up to 72.1 and 79.6 m, respectively. Seeds of both species released from 2 m traveled greater distances than seeds released from 0.75 m, which fell within 20 m of the release point. Release height was the most important factor influencing long-distance dispersal events. Wind speed also strongly interacted with release height for long-distance dispersal of V. nigrum. Vincetoxicum nigrum seed mass was greater and settling rates faster than for V. rossicum. Increasing seed mass generally increased settling rate, which in turn decreased distance traveled, except in V. rossicum, for which longer distance–dispersing seeds had a faster settling rate. Our findings suggest that management efforts focus on reducing the presence of these two vines, especially if there is potential for them to climb up taller vegetation such as trees. Seeds released from these greater heights are more likely to travel far from source populations and initiate new populations. Preventing seed production in small, nonclimbing patches will also help suppress the expansion of these two vines, as seeds can still disperse up to 20 m away from parent plants.

The dispersal-related traits of an invasive plant Galinsoga quadriradiata correlate with elevation during range expansion into mountain ranges

“…We speculate that our results are more supportive of the first hypothesis, particularly because a trade-off between dispersal ability and seed mass has broad support in the literature ( Cappuccino et al 2002 ; Huang et al 2015 ; Tabassum and Leishman 2017 ; DiTommaso et al 2018 ). Although the NSC increased with altitude ( Fig.…”

Spatially explicit removal strategies increase the efficiency of invasive plant species control

“…Fitting this cumulative frequency distribution to the observed distribution of Δ patches (using the nonlinear least‐squares fitting method as implemented in MATLAB), we obtained a value L = 43 m (nonlinear least‐squares fitting: R adj 2 = 0.79, df = 570, P < 10 −16 ). This corresponds to a mean dispersal distance of 38 m (e.g., Nathan et al 2012), which is higher than observed for wind‐dispersed seeds of other invasive vine species Vinetoxicum nigrum and V. rossicum (4–17 m, DiTommaso et al 2018), but within the dispersal range observed in the same study (0–80 m DiTommaso et al 2018). The extent of the resulting dispersal kernel is very similar to the dispersal kernel used in a previous study to describe spread of the vine Pueraria montana var.…”

Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of intraspecific variation in seed dispersal are diverse and pervasive

“…Nonetheless, limited empirical evidence suggests that interindividual height variation might be at least a minor driver of interindividual variation in dispersal, at least for abiotically dispersed species. With anemochory, plant (or seed release) height has been shown to be positively related to dispersal distances in trees (Sinha and Davidar 1992) and herbaceous perennials (Sheldon and Burrows 1973; Weiblen and Thomson 1995; Skarpass et al 2011; Zhang et al 2011; Zhu et al 2016; DiTommaso et al 2018), in some cases relatively strongly (e.g. Zhu et al 2016).…”