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Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities

BACKGROUND: Phragmites australis, a ubiquitous wetland plant, has been considered one of the most invasive species in the world. Allelopathy appears to be one of the invasion mechanisms, however, the effects could be masked by resource competition among target plants. The difficulty of distinguishin...

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Autores principales: Uddin, Md Nazim, Robinson, Randall William
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28664396
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-017-0183-9
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author Uddin, Md Nazim
Robinson, Randall William
author_facet Uddin, Md Nazim
Robinson, Randall William
author_sort Uddin, Md Nazim
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Phragmites australis, a ubiquitous wetland plant, has been considered one of the most invasive species in the world. Allelopathy appears to be one of the invasion mechanisms, however, the effects could be masked by resource competition among target plants. The difficulty of distinguishing allelopathy from resource competition among plants has hindered investigations of the role of phytotoxic allelochemicals in plant communities. This has been addressed via experiments conducted in both the greenhouse and laboratory by growing associated plants, Melaleuca ericifolia, Rumex conglomeratus, and model plant, Lactuca sativa at varying densities with the allelopathic plant, P. australis, its litter and leachate of P. australis litter. This study investigated the potential interacting influences of allelopathy and resource competition on plant growth–density relationships. RESULTS: In greenhouse, the root exudates mediated effects showed the strongest growth inhibition of M. ericifolia at high density whereas litter mediated results revealed increased growth at medium density treatments compared to low and high density. Again, laboratory experiments related to seed germination and seedling growth of L. sativa and R. conglomeratus exhibited phytotoxicity decreased showing positive growth as plant density increased and vice versa. Overall, the differential effects were observed among experiments but maximum individual plant biomass and some other positive effects on plant traits such as root and shoot length, chlorophyll content occurred at an intermediate density. This was attributed to the sharing of the available phytotoxin among plants at high densities which is compatible to density-dependent phytotoxicity model. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrated that plant–plant interference is the combined effect of allelopathy and resource competition with many other factors but this experimental design, target-neighbor mixed-culture in combination of plant grown at varying densities with varying level of phytotoxins, mono-culture, can successfully separate allelopathic effects from competition. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40529-017-0183-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-54914262017-07-13 Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities Uddin, Md Nazim Robinson, Randall William Bot Stud Original Article BACKGROUND: Phragmites australis, a ubiquitous wetland plant, has been considered one of the most invasive species in the world. Allelopathy appears to be one of the invasion mechanisms, however, the effects could be masked by resource competition among target plants. The difficulty of distinguishing allelopathy from resource competition among plants has hindered investigations of the role of phytotoxic allelochemicals in plant communities. This has been addressed via experiments conducted in both the greenhouse and laboratory by growing associated plants, Melaleuca ericifolia, Rumex conglomeratus, and model plant, Lactuca sativa at varying densities with the allelopathic plant, P. australis, its litter and leachate of P. australis litter. This study investigated the potential interacting influences of allelopathy and resource competition on plant growth–density relationships. RESULTS: In greenhouse, the root exudates mediated effects showed the strongest growth inhibition of M. ericifolia at high density whereas litter mediated results revealed increased growth at medium density treatments compared to low and high density. Again, laboratory experiments related to seed germination and seedling growth of L. sativa and R. conglomeratus exhibited phytotoxicity decreased showing positive growth as plant density increased and vice versa. Overall, the differential effects were observed among experiments but maximum individual plant biomass and some other positive effects on plant traits such as root and shoot length, chlorophyll content occurred at an intermediate density. This was attributed to the sharing of the available phytotoxin among plants at high densities which is compatible to density-dependent phytotoxicity model. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrated that plant–plant interference is the combined effect of allelopathy and resource competition with many other factors but this experimental design, target-neighbor mixed-culture in combination of plant grown at varying densities with varying level of phytotoxins, mono-culture, can successfully separate allelopathic effects from competition. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40529-017-0183-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5491426/ /pubmed/28664396 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-017-0183-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Article
Uddin, Md Nazim
Robinson, Randall William
Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title_full Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title_fullStr Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title_full_unstemmed Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title_short Allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of Phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
title_sort allelopathy and resource competition: the effects of phragmites australis invasion in plant communities
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28664396
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-017-0183-9
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