Seed dispersal distance is more strongly correlated with plant height than with seed mass

Thomson, Fiona J.; Moles, Angela T.; Auld, Tony D.; Kingsford, Richard T.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01867.x

Cited by 549 publications

(627 citation statements)

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“…Meanwhile, strong correlations between C RA and height of C. canadensis under moderate and high abundances and in Zhenjiang were also observed via PCA. The results suggested that plant height is a pivotal characteristic that governs the resource acquisition and competitive ability of plants [25,26] -particularly in terms of competing for light, a major requirement for successful invasion of species [28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Functional Traits and Reproductive Allocation Strategy of Conyza canadensis as they Vary by Invasion Degree Along a Latitude Gradient

Wang¹,

Zhou²,

Liu³

et al. 2017

Pol. J. Environ. Stud.

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This study aims to determine the functional traits and reproductive allocation (RA) strategy of the invasive plant Conyza canadensis across different invasion degrees along a latitude gradient in China. Invasion degree did not affect the functional traits and RA strategy of C. canadensis significantly. The high proportion of reproductive biomass (allocating approximately 20% of total biomass into reproductive behaviors) of C. canadensis across different invasion degrees can achieve a fitness advantage in broadening its habitat niches and can eventually attain a successful invasion. The higher proportion of reproductive biomass of C. canadensis in warm temperate and subtropical monsoon climatic zones may play an important role in its successful invasion in the two climatic zones in China. One possible reason for this is that eastern China and northern China, in which C. canadensis vigorously occurs, have the same or similar climate as their natural habitat in the original distribution region. The proportion of reproductive biomass of C. canadensis positively correlated with its total biomass, aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, and vegetative biomass, as well as with its height and leaf size. Meanwhile, temperature rather than annual sunshine hours or annual precipitation was determined to be the most important environmental factor that triggers pronounced effects on the RA strategy of C. canadensis.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For most plants, height plays an important role in their competitive ability [25,26]. Previous studies showed that plant height decreases with increasing latitude [25], but significantly increases with increasing temperature [27].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Traits and Reproductive Allocation Strategy of Conyza canadensis as they Vary by Invasion Degree Along a Latitude Gradient

Wang¹,

Zhou²,

Liu³

et al. 2017

Pol. J. Environ. Stud.

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“…Seed dispersal rates were first estimated from well-established relationships between dispersal distance, plant height, and dispersal syndrome (21). We used two empirical methods to test the validity of these estimates.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant invasions and extinction debts

Gilbert

Levine

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

171

205

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Whether introduced species invasions pose a major threat to biodiversity is hotly debated. Much of this debate is fueled by recent findings that competition from introduced organisms has driven remarkably few plant species to extinction. Instead, native plant species in invaded ecosystems are often found in refugia: patchy, marginal habitats unsuitable to their nonnative competitors. However, whether the colonization and extinction dynamics of these refugia allow long-term native persistence is uncertain. Of particular concern is the possibility that invasive plants may induce an extinction debt in the native flora, where persistence over the short term masks deterministic extinction trajectories. We examined how invader impacts on landscape structure influence native plant persistence by combining recently developed quantitative techniques for evaluating metapopulation persistence with field measurements of an invaded plant community. We found that European grass invasion of an edaphically heterogeneous California landscape has greatly decreased the likelihood of the persistence of native metapopulations. It does so via two main pathways: (i) decreasing the size of native refugia, which reduces seed production and increases local extinction, and (ii) eroding the dispersal permeability of the matrix between refugia, which reduces their connectivity. Even when native plant extinction is the deterministic outcome of invasion, the time to extinction can be on the order of hundreds of years. We conclude that the relatively short time since invasion in many parts of the world is insufficient to observe the full impact of plant invasions on native biodiversity. metacommunity | metapopulation | invasive species | spatial ecology | temporal lag I ntroduced species are often considered a leading threat to native biodiversity (1, 2). However, recent syntheses show that competition from introduced species, and plant invaders in particular, has only rarely resulted in extinction (3-6). This trend has emerged because, in the short term at least, invasive plants do not completely extirpate native plant species but rather reduce their distribution and abundance, often restricting them to isolated habitat refugia (7-9). Despite well-established cases of native plants occupying distinct refugia and outperforming invasive plant species in those habitats (8, 10, 11), the long-term dynamics of native species in these refugia are poorly understood. Given the global prevalence of plant displacement by invasions, it is important to develop a general method for predicting how extinction debts may develop following invasions.The metapopulation framework, which considers a network of isolated populations connected via dispersal, provides an excellent starting point for understanding the long-term consequences of invasions. When native populations are relegated to spatially isolated refugia, their long-term persistence is regulated by the colonization and extinction dynamics in their entire metapopulation (12). A large body of work sugges...

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“…Stem-elongation allows a plant to overtop its neighbors, gaining exposure to direct sunlight (Donohue et al, 2001;Weinig et al, 2004). This will also elevate flowers and enhance pollen and seed dispersal, especially for wind-dispersed species (for example, Soons et al, 2004; Thomson et al, 2011). Thus, although the decision to disperse is often treated as dichotomous (either one leaves or one stays), conditional dispersal does not necessarily require distinct morphologies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of dispersal plasticity on population divergence and speciation

Arendt

2015

Heredity

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Phenotypic plasticity is thought to have a role in driving population establishment, local adaptation and speciation. However, dispersal plasticity has been underappreciated in this literature. Plasticity in the decision to disperse is taxonomically widespread and I provide examples for insects, molluscs, polychaetes, vertebrates and flowering plants. Theoretical work is limited but indicates an interaction between dispersal distance and plasticity in the decision to disperse. When dispersal is confined to adjacent patches, dispersal plasticity may enhance local adaptation over unconditional (non-plastic) dispersal. However, when dispersal distances are greater, plasticity in dispersal decisions strongly reduces the potential for local adaptation and population divergence. Upon dispersal, settlement may be random, biased but genetically determined, or biased but plastically determined. Theory shows that biased settlement of either type increases population divergence over random settlement. One model suggests that plasticity further enhances chances of speciation. However, there are many strategies for deciding on where to settle such as a best-of-N strategy, sequential sampling with a threshold for acceptance or matching with natal habitat. To date, these strategies do not seem to have been compared within a single model. Although we are just beginning to explore evolutionary effects of dispersal plasticity, it clearly has the potential to enhance as well as inhibit population divergence. Additional work should pay particular attention to dispersal distance and the strategy used to decide on where to settle.

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Seed dispersal distance is more strongly correlated with plant height than with seed mass

Cited by 549 publications

References 49 publications

Functional Traits and Reproductive Allocation Strategy of Conyza canadensis as they Vary by Invasion Degree Along a Latitude Gradient

Functional Traits and Reproductive Allocation Strategy of Conyza canadensis as they Vary by Invasion Degree Along a Latitude Gradient

Plant invasions and extinction debts

Effects of dispersal plasticity on population divergence and speciation

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