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The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners

Heterocarpy enables species to effectively spread under unfavourable conditions by producing two or more types of fruit differing in ecological characteristics. Although it is frequent in annuals occupying disturbed habitats that are vulnerable to invasion, there is still a lack of congeneric studie...

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Autores principales: Doudová, Jana, Douda, Jan, Mandák, Bohumil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405964/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176455
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author Doudová, Jana
Douda, Jan
Mandák, Bohumil
author_facet Doudová, Jana
Douda, Jan
Mandák, Bohumil
author_sort Doudová, Jana
collection PubMed
description Heterocarpy enables species to effectively spread under unfavourable conditions by producing two or more types of fruit differing in ecological characteristics. Although it is frequent in annuals occupying disturbed habitats that are vulnerable to invasion, there is still a lack of congeneric studies addressing the importance of heterocarpy for species invasion success. We compared two pairs of heterocarpic Atriplex species, each of them comprising one invasive and one non-invasive non-native congener. In two common garden experiments, we (i) simulated the influence of different levels of nutrients and population density on plants grown from different types of fruits and examined several traits that are generally positively associated with invasion success, and (ii) grew plants in a replacement series experiment to evaluate resource partitioning between them and to compare their competitive ability. We found that specific functional traits or competitiveness of species cannot explain the invasiveness of Atriplex species, indicating that species invasiveness involves more complex interactions of traits that are important only in certain ecological contexts, i.e. in specific environmental conditions and only some habitats. Interestingly, species trait differences related to invasion success were found between plants growing from the ecologically most contrasting fruit types. We suggest that fruit types differing in ecological behaviour may be essential in the process of invasion or in the general spreading of heterocarpic species, as they either the maximize population growth (type C fruit) or enhance the chance of survival of new populations (type A fruit). Congeners offer the best available methodical framework for comparing traits among phylogenetically closely related invasive and non-invasive species. However, as indicated by our results, this approach is unlikely to reveal invasive traits because of the complexity underlying invasiveness.
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spelling pubmed-54059642017-05-14 The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners Doudová, Jana Douda, Jan Mandák, Bohumil PLoS One Research Article Heterocarpy enables species to effectively spread under unfavourable conditions by producing two or more types of fruit differing in ecological characteristics. Although it is frequent in annuals occupying disturbed habitats that are vulnerable to invasion, there is still a lack of congeneric studies addressing the importance of heterocarpy for species invasion success. We compared two pairs of heterocarpic Atriplex species, each of them comprising one invasive and one non-invasive non-native congener. In two common garden experiments, we (i) simulated the influence of different levels of nutrients and population density on plants grown from different types of fruits and examined several traits that are generally positively associated with invasion success, and (ii) grew plants in a replacement series experiment to evaluate resource partitioning between them and to compare their competitive ability. We found that specific functional traits or competitiveness of species cannot explain the invasiveness of Atriplex species, indicating that species invasiveness involves more complex interactions of traits that are important only in certain ecological contexts, i.e. in specific environmental conditions and only some habitats. Interestingly, species trait differences related to invasion success were found between plants growing from the ecologically most contrasting fruit types. We suggest that fruit types differing in ecological behaviour may be essential in the process of invasion or in the general spreading of heterocarpic species, as they either the maximize population growth (type C fruit) or enhance the chance of survival of new populations (type A fruit). Congeners offer the best available methodical framework for comparing traits among phylogenetically closely related invasive and non-invasive species. However, as indicated by our results, this approach is unlikely to reveal invasive traits because of the complexity underlying invasiveness. Public Library of Science 2017-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5405964/ /pubmed/28445514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176455 Text en © 2017 Doudová et al 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 use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Doudová, Jana
Douda, Jan
Mandák, Bohumil
The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title_full The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title_fullStr The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title_full_unstemmed The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title_short The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners
title_sort complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: a comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic atriplex congeners
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405964/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176455
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