Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability

While the soil environment is generally acknowledged as playing a role in plant competition, the relative importance of soil resources and soil microbes in determining outcomes of competition between native and exotic plants has rarely been tested. Resilience of plant communities to invasion by exot...

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Autores principales: Shivega, W. Gaya, Aldrich-Wolfe, Laura
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5402526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28122737
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plx004
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author Shivega, W. Gaya
Aldrich-Wolfe, Laura
author_facet Shivega, W. Gaya
Aldrich-Wolfe, Laura
author_sort Shivega, W. Gaya
collection PubMed
description While the soil environment is generally acknowledged as playing a role in plant competition, the relative importance of soil resources and soil microbes in determining outcomes of competition between native and exotic plants has rarely been tested. Resilience of plant communities to invasion by exotic species may depend on the extent to which native and exotic plant performance are mediated by abiotic and biotic components of the soil. We used a greenhouse experiment to compare performance of two native prairie plant species and one exotic species, when grown in intraspecific competition and when each native was grown in interspecific competition with the exotic species, in the presence and absence of a native prairie soil community, and when nitrogen availability was elevated or was maintained at native prairie levels. We found that elevated nitrogen availability was beneficial to the exotic species and had no effect on or was detrimental to the native plant species, that the native microbial community was beneficial to the native plant species and either had no effect or was detrimental to the exotic species and that intraspecific competition was stronger than interspecific competition for the exotic plant species and vice versa for the natives. Our results demonstrate that soil nitrogen availability and the soil microbial community can mediate the strength of competition between native and exotic plant species. We found no evidence for native microbes enhancing the performance of the exotic plant species. Instead, loss of the native soil microbial community appears to reinforce the negative effects of elevated N on native plant communities and its benefits to exotic invasive species. Resilience of plant communities to invasion by exotic plant species is facilitated by the presence of an intact native soil microbial community and weakened by anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen.
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spelling pubmed-54025262017-04-28 Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability Shivega, W. Gaya Aldrich-Wolfe, Laura AoB Plants Research Article While the soil environment is generally acknowledged as playing a role in plant competition, the relative importance of soil resources and soil microbes in determining outcomes of competition between native and exotic plants has rarely been tested. Resilience of plant communities to invasion by exotic species may depend on the extent to which native and exotic plant performance are mediated by abiotic and biotic components of the soil. We used a greenhouse experiment to compare performance of two native prairie plant species and one exotic species, when grown in intraspecific competition and when each native was grown in interspecific competition with the exotic species, in the presence and absence of a native prairie soil community, and when nitrogen availability was elevated or was maintained at native prairie levels. We found that elevated nitrogen availability was beneficial to the exotic species and had no effect on or was detrimental to the native plant species, that the native microbial community was beneficial to the native plant species and either had no effect or was detrimental to the exotic species and that intraspecific competition was stronger than interspecific competition for the exotic plant species and vice versa for the natives. Our results demonstrate that soil nitrogen availability and the soil microbial community can mediate the strength of competition between native and exotic plant species. We found no evidence for native microbes enhancing the performance of the exotic plant species. Instead, loss of the native soil microbial community appears to reinforce the negative effects of elevated N on native plant communities and its benefits to exotic invasive species. Resilience of plant communities to invasion by exotic plant species is facilitated by the presence of an intact native soil microbial community and weakened by anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen. Oxford University Press 2017-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5402526/ /pubmed/28122737 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plx004 Text en © The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Shivega, W. Gaya
Aldrich-Wolfe, Laura
Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title_full Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title_fullStr Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title_full_unstemmed Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title_short Native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
title_sort native plants fare better against an introduced competitor with native microbes and lower nitrogen availability
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5402526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28122737
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plx004
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