Biotic interactions drive ecosystem responses to exotic plant invaders

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 368 (6494) ◽  
pp. 967-972 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. P. Waller ◽  
W. J. Allen ◽  
B. I. P. Barratt ◽  
L. M. Condron ◽  
F. M. França ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Soil Biota ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Plant Invaders ◽  
Plant Effects

Ecosystem process rates typically increase after plant invasion, but the extent to which this is driven by (i) changes in productivity, (ii) exotic species’ traits, or (iii) novel (non-coevolved) biotic interactions has never been quantified. We created communities varying in exotic plant dominance, plant traits, soil biota, and invertebrate herbivores and measured indicators of carbon cycling. Interactions with soil biota and herbivores were the strongest drivers of exotic plant effects, particularly on measures of soil carbon turnover. Moreover, plant traits related to growth and nutrient acquisition explained differences in the ways that exotic plants interacted with novel biota compared with natives. We conclude that novel biological interactions with exotic species are a more important driver of ecosystem transformation than was previously recognized.

Exotic plant invasion and understorey species richness: a comparison of two types of eucalypt woodland in agricultural Western Australia

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Abensperg-Traun ◽  
Lyn Atkins ◽  
Richard Hobbs ◽  
Dion Steven
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Invasion ◽  
Native Plants ◽  
Exotic Plants ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Road Verge ◽  
Exotic Plant Invasion

Exotic plants are a major threat to native plant diversity in Australia yet a generic model of the invasion of Australian ecosystems by exotic species is lacking because invasion levels differ with vegetation/soil type and environmental conditions. This study compared relative differences in exotic species invasion (percent cover, spp. richness) and the species richness of herbaceous native plants in two structurally very similar vegetation types, Gimlet Eucalyptus salubris and Wandoo E. capillosa woodlands in the Western Australian wheatbelt. For each woodland type, plant variables were measured for relatively undisturbed woodlands, woodlands with >30 years of livestock grazing history, and woodlands in road-verges. Grazed and road-verge Gimlet and Wandoo woodlands had significantly higher cover of exotic species, and lower species richness of native plants, compared with undisturbed Gimlet and Wandoo. Exotic plant invasion was significantly greater in Gimlet woodlands for both grazed (mean 78% cover) and road-verge sites (mean 42% cover) than in comparable sites in Wandoo woodlands (grazed sites 25% cover, road-verge sites 19% cover). There was no significant difference in the species richness of exotic plants between Wandoo and Gimlet sites for any of the three situations. Mean site richness of native plants was not significantly different between undisturbed Wandoo and undisturbed Gimlet woodlands. Undisturbed woodlands were significantly richer in plant species than grazed and road-verge woodlands for both woodland types. Grazed and road-verge Wandoo sites were significantly richer in plant species than communities in grazed and road-verge Gimlet. The percent cover of exotics was negatively correlated with total (native) plant species richness for both woodland types (Wandoo r = ?0.70, Gimlet r = ?0.87). Of the total native species recorded in undisturbed Gimlet, 83% and 61% were not recorded in grazed and road-verge Gimlet, respectively. This compared with 40% and 33% for grazed and road-verge Wandoo, respectively. Grazed Wandoo and grazed Gimlet sites had significantly fewer native plant species than did road-verge Wandoo and road-verge Gimlet sites. Ecosystem implications of differential invasions by exotic species, and the effects of grazing (disturbance) and other factors influencing susceptibility to exotic plant invasion (landscape, competition and allelopathy) on native species decline are discussed. Exclusion of livestock and adequate methods of control and prevention of further invasions by exotic plants are essential requirements for the conservation of these woodland systems.

scholarly journals Effects of Urbanization on Plant–Pollinator Interactions in the Tropics: An Experimental Approach Using Exotic Plants

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 773
Author(s):  
Marie Zakardjian ◽  
Benoît Geslin ◽  
Valentin Mitran ◽  
Evelyne Franquet ◽  
Hervé Jourdan
Keyword(s):  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Native Species ◽  
New Caledonia ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Exotic Plants ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
Wild Bees ◽  
Plant Pollinator

Land-use changes through urbanization and biological invasions both threaten plant-pollinator networks. Urban areas host modified bee communities and are characterized by high proportions of exotic plants. Exotic species, either animals or plants, may compete with native species and disrupt plant–pollinator interactions. These threats are heightened in insular systems of the Southwest Pacific, where the bee fauna is generally poor and ecological networks are simplified. However, the impacts of these factors have seldom been studied in tropical contexts. To explore those questions, we installed experimental exotic plant communities in urban and natural contexts in New Caledonia, a plant diversity hotspot. For four weeks, we observed plant–pollinator interactions between local pollinators and our experimental exotic plant communities. We found a significantly higher foraging activity of exotic wild bees within the city, together with a strong plant–pollinator association between two exotic species. However, contrary to our expectations, the landscape context (urban vs. natural) had no effect on the activity of native bees. These results raise issues concerning how species introduced in plant–pollinator networks will impact the reproductive success of both native and exotic plants. Furthermore, the urban system could act as a springboard for alien species to disperse in natural systems and even invade them, leading to conservation concerns.

Geographic, environmental and biotic sources of variation in the nutrient relations of tropical montane forests

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 368-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Dalling ◽  
Katherine Heineman ◽  
Grizelle González ◽  
Rebecca Ostertag
Keyword(s):  
Plant Traits ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Parent Material ◽  
Montane Forests ◽  
Plant Soil ◽  
Tropical Montane Forests ◽  
Decomposition Of Organic Matter ◽  
High Investment ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Nutrient Relations

Abstract:Tropical montane forests (TMF) are associated with a widely observed suite of characteristics encompassing forest structure, plant traits and biogeochemistry. With respect to nutrient relations, montane forests are characterized by slow decomposition of organic matter, high investment in below-ground biomass and poor litter quality, relative to tropical lowland forests. However, within TMF there is considerable variation in substrate age, parent material, disturbance and species composition. Here we emphasize that many TMFs are likely to be co-limited by multiple nutrients, and that feedback among soil properties, species traits, microbial communities and environmental conditions drive forest productivity and soil carbon storage. To date, studies of the biogeochemistry of montane forests have been restricted to a few, mostly neotropical, sites and focused mainly on trees while ignoring mycorrhizas, epiphytes and microbial community structure. Incorporating the geographic, environmental and biotic variability in TMF will lead to a greater recognition of plant–soil feedbacks that are critical to understanding constraints on productivity, both under present conditions and under future climate, nitrogen-deposition and land-use scenarios.

The upland hardwood component of Prince Edward Island's remnant Acadian forest: determination of depth of edge and patterns of exotic plant invasion

2003 ◽  
Vol 81 (11) ◽  
pp. 1113-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate MacQuarrie ◽  
Christian Lacroix
Keyword(s):  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Invasion ◽  
Vascular Plants ◽  
Canopy Cover ◽  
Percent Cover ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
Exotic Plant Invasion ◽  
Acadian Forest ◽  
Study Sites

The upland hardwood component of Prince Edward Island's Acadian forest is among the best remaining examples of the precolonial landscape, but it has been severely fragmented during the past 300 years of human use and settlement. Despite the ecological importance of this remnant habitat and its level of fragmentation, there has been no assessment of depth of edge or exotic plant invasion in these areas. Three 300 m long edge–interior transects were established in each of six study sites. Nine 100-m2 circular plots were sampled along each transect at distances from 5.7 to 300 m; one external plot was established at each transect to sample species in adjacent habitats. In each plot, all vascular plants were identified, a visual estimate of percent cover was made, and soil temperature, canopy cover, and tree diameters were measured. An edge–interior plant community gradient was found within these forests; a plant community characteristic of interior conditions was not reached until a distance of more than 120 m from an edge. This suggests that upland hardwood protected areas smaller than 240 m on a side (5.75 ha) are unlikely to include interior habitat, and sites should be greater than 320 m on all sides (10.24 ha) to ensure at least some interior habitat for vascular plants. Invasion by exotic species was found to be more extensive than that reported from other jurisdictions, and innermost (300 m) plots were not free from exotics. Fifteen exotic species were found within the study sites, with Veronica officinalis (common speedwell) and Hieracium lachenalii (hawkweed) being the most invasive, both in terms of distance penetrated and area covered.Key words: Acadian forest, fragmentation, depth of edge, protected area, Veronica, Hieracium.

scholarly journals Biotic interactions experienced by a new invader: effects of its close relatives at the community scale

Botany ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Hill ◽  
Peter M. Kotanen
Keyword(s):  
Shoot Growth ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Soil Biota ◽  
Community Type ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Old Field ◽  
Soil Sterilization ◽  
Vegetation Removal ◽  
Solidago Virgaurea ◽  
Close Relatives

The success of nonindigenous species may be influenced by biotic interactions during the initial stages of invasion. Here, we investigated whether a potential invader, Solidago virgaurea L., would experience more damage by natural enemies in communities dominated by close relatives than those without them; interactions with mutualistic mycorrhizae might partially counteract these effects. We monitored damage experienced by S. virgaurea planted into communities with native congeners and without close relatives. Community type was crossed with a vegetation removal treatment to assess the combined effects of herbivory and competition on survival. We also evaluated growth of S. virgaurea in a greenhouse experiment where seedlings were exposed to soil biota sampled from these communities and compared with sterile controls. Overall, community type did not affect levels of herbivory or plant survival. Removal of surrounding vegetation resulted in reduced damage and increased survival; these effects were largest in grass-dominated communities. Soil sterilization reduced root growth and tended to reduce shoot growth, especially when compared with plants inoculated with biota collected near congeners. Overall, our results suggest that the presence of close relatives is unlikely to make old-field communities more resistant to invasion by S. virgaurea; instead, soil biota might facilitate growth in communities dominated by close relatives.

scholarly journals Broader Impacts for Ecologists: Biological Soil Crust as a Model System for Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akasha M. Faist ◽  
Anita J. Antoninka ◽  
Nichole N. Barger ◽  
Matthew A. Bowker ◽  
V. Bala Chaudhary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Biological Soil Crust ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Ecosystem Processes ◽  
Model System ◽  
Teaching Tool ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Excellent Teaching ◽  
Patterns And Processes

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are a complex community of algae, cyanobacteria, lichens, bryophytes, and assorted bacteria, fungi, archaea, and bacteriophages that colonize the soil surface. Biocrusts are particularly common in drylands and are found in arid and semiarid ecosystems worldwide. While diminutive in size, biocrusts often cover large terrestrial areas, provide numerous ecosystem benefits, enhance biodiversity, and are found in multiple configurations and assemblages across different climate and disturbance regimes. Biocrusts have been a focus of many ecologists, especially those working in semiarid and arid lands, as biocrusts are foundational community members, play fundamental roles in ecosystem processes, and offer rare opportunities to study biological interactions at small and large spatial scales. Due to these same characteristics, biocrusts have the potential to serve as an excellent teaching tool. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of biocrust communities as a model system in science education. Functioning as portable, dynamic mini ecosystems, biocrusts can be used to teach about organisms, biodiversity, biotic interactions, abiotic controls, ecosystem processes, and even global change, and can be easy to use in nearly every classroom setup. For example, education principles, such as evolution and adaptation to stress, or structure and function (patterns and processes) can be applied by bringing biocrusts into the classroom as a teaching tool. In addition, discussing the utility of biocrusts in the classroom – including theory, hypothesis testing, experimentation, and hands-on learning – this document also provides tips and resources for developing education tools and activities geared toward impactful learning.

scholarly journals The Standards behind the Scenes: Explaining data from the Plazi workflow

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donat Agosti ◽  
Marcus Guidoti ◽  
Terry Catapano ◽  
Alexandros Ioannidis-Pantopikos ◽  
Guido Sautter
Keyword(s):  
Task Force ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Portable Document Format ◽  
Biomedical Ontology ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Related Data ◽  
Scholarly Publications

As part of the CETAF COVID19 task force, Plazi liberated taxonomic treatments, figures, observation records, biotic interactions, taxonomic names, and collection and specimen codes involving bats and viruses from scholarly publications with the intention to create open access, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data (FAIR). The data is accessible via TreatmentBank and the Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR) and it is continually harvested and reused by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI). This data was processed, enhanced and liberated by the Plazi workflow, which involves a dedicated infrastructure including a desktop application (GoldenGate Imagine) that converts portable document format files (PDF) to a dedicated open compressed file format (Image Markup File (IMF)) that is responsible for the data enhancement. To enhance the data contained in the publications, including the biological interactions, a series of standards and vocabularies are used. To the exception of TaxPub, which is a taxonomic specific extension of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information's (NCBI) Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS), all other used vocabulary were previously proposed. This goes along with Plazi’s mission to reuse standards unless they are not available. The following standards of vocabularies are used: Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) to model article metadata information on Plazi’s XMLs; Darwin Core for taxonomic ranks and materials citation related data; Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO); Relations Ontology for biological interactions between organisms. The latter two are also used in the custom metadata in the Biodiversity Literature Repository at Zenodo. In this presentation we will provide an overview of the different types of data followed by the standards or vocabularies applied for every and each one of them and their parts. The goal is to provide the context on how the data liberated by Plazi is described, which is extensively reused by third-party applications such as GBIF or GloBI. The use of the standards allows fully automated, daily data ingests by GBIF.

scholarly journals Advances in Breeding for Mixed Cropping – Incomplete Factorials and the Producer/Associate Concept

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Haug ◽  
Monika M. Messmer ◽  
Jérôme Enjalbert ◽  
Isabelle Goldringer ◽  
Emma Forst ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Traits ◽  
Mixed Cropping ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Mixed Crop ◽  
Incomplete Factorial Design ◽  
Mixing Ability ◽  
Total Mixture ◽  
Facilitative Interactions

Mixed cropping has been suggested as a resource-efficient approach to meet high produce demands while maintaining biodiversity and minimizing environmental impact. Current breeding programs do not select for enhanced general mixing ability (GMA) and neglect biological interactions within species mixtures. Clear concepts and efficient experimental designs, adapted to breeding for mixed cropping and encoded into appropriate statistical models, are lacking. Thus, a model framework for GMA and SMA (specific mixing ability) was established. Results of a simulation study showed that an incomplete factorial design combines advantages of two commonly used full factorials, and enables to estimate GMA, SMA, and their variances in a resource-efficient way. This model was extended to the Producer (Pr) and Associate (As) concept to exploit additional information based on fraction yields. It was shown that the Pr/As concept allows to characterize genotypes for their contribution to total mixture yield, and, when relating to plant traits, allows to describe biological interaction functions (BIF) in a mixed crop. Incomplete factorial designs show the potential to drastically improve genetic gain by testing an increased number of genotypes using the same amount of resources. The Pr/As concept can further be employed to maximize GMA in an informed and efficient way. The BIF of a trait can be used to optimize species ratios at harvest as well as to extend our understanding of competitive and facilitative interactions in a mixed plant community. This study provides an integrative methodological framework to promote breeding for mixed cropping.

scholarly journals A roadmap to identifying and filling shortfalls in Neotropical ornithology

The Auk ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Charles Lees ◽  
Kenneth V Rosenberg ◽  
Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez ◽  
Stuart Marsden ◽  
Thomas S Schulenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Habitat Restoration ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Complete Knowledge ◽  
Technological Advances

Abstract Securing the long-term resilience of the world’s most speciose avifauna, that of the Neotropics, requires spatially and temporally explicit data to inform decisions. We examine gaps in our knowledge of the region’s avifauna through the lens of the biodiversity shortfall concept: the gaps between realized knowledge and complete knowledge. This framework serves as a useful tool to take stock of the last 25 yr of Neotropical ornithological work since the untimely death of Ted Parker. Here, we highlight 7 key shortfalls: taxonomy, distribution, abundance, evolutionary patterns, abiotic tolerances, species traits, and biotic interactions. We then propose an eighth—and new—“Parkerian” shortfall that reflects a lack of basic natural history knowledge key to understanding how species might respond to environmental challenges. Bridging this shortfall will help reverse declines by informing reintroduction, recovery network, and habitat restoration efforts. We discuss the challenges imposed by each shortfall and how strategies such as citizen-science initiatives and technological advances can either remedy or mitigate the uncertainty they generate.

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