Plant invasions differentially affected by diversity and dominant species in native‐ and exotic‐dominated grasslands

Ecology and Evolution

Xia Xu³  H. Wayne Polley¹  Kirsten Hofmockel³  Pedram P. Daneshgar² 

[1] Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Temple, Texas;Department of Biology, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey;Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa

关键词: Climate change;    dominant species;    irrigation;    precipitation pattern;    native and exotic grasslands;    phenology;    plant invasions;    species richness;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.1830

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Plant invasions are an increasingly serious global concern, especially as the climate changes. Here, we explored how plant invasions differed between native- and novel exotic-dominated grasslands with experimental addition of summer precipitation in Texas in 2009. Exotic species greened up earlier than natives by an average of 18 days. This was associated with a lower invasion rate early in the growing season compared to native communities. However, invasion rate did not differ significantly between native and exotic communities across all sampling times. The predictors of invasion rate differed between native and exotic communities, with invasion being negatively influenced by species richness in natives and by dominant species in exotics. Interestingly, plant invasions matched the bimodal pattern of precipitation in Temple, Texas, and did not respond to the pulse of precipitation during the summer. Our results suggest that we will need to take different approaches in understanding of invasion between native and exotic grasslands. Moreover, with anticipated increasing variability in precipitation under global climate change, plant invasions may be constrained in their response if the precipitation pulses fall outside the normal growing period of invaders.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.