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Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France

A major aim in invasion biology is identifying traits distinguishing alien invasive and alien non-invasive plants. Surprisingly, this approach has been, so far, poorly used to understand why some arable weeds are abundant and widespread while others are rare and narrowly distributed. In the present...

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Autores principales: Fried, Guillaume, Chauvel, Bruno, Munoz, François, Reboud, Xavier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7020207/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31881706
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9010040
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author Fried, Guillaume
Chauvel, Bruno
Munoz, François
Reboud, Xavier
author_facet Fried, Guillaume
Chauvel, Bruno
Munoz, François
Reboud, Xavier
author_sort Fried, Guillaume
collection PubMed
description A major aim in invasion biology is identifying traits distinguishing alien invasive and alien non-invasive plants. Surprisingly, this approach has been, so far, poorly used to understand why some arable weeds are abundant and widespread while others are rare and narrowly distributed. In the present study, we focused on the characteristics of successful weeds occurring in maize fields, one of the most important crops worldwide. Two national weed surveys conducted in France were used to identify increasing and decreasing species based on 175 and 484 surveyed fields in the 1970s and the 2000s, respectively. Weed trait values related to regional frequency, local abundance, and specialization to maize were identified with phylogenetic generalized least-squares (PGLS). We found a positive relationship between regional frequency and local abundance, i.e., the most widespread weeds were also locally more abundant. We highlighted that weeds with the C4 photosynthetic pathway and summer emergence were more abundant, more frequent, and more specialized to maize crops. More generally, we highlighted two successful strategies: On the one hand, traits related to a general weediness syndrome with rapid resource acquisition (high SLA and Ellenberg-N) and high colonization capacity (seed longevity, fecundity, and wind dispersal); on the other hand, traits related to specific adaptation to spring cultivation (thermophilous species with summer emergence, late flowering, and C4 photosynthetic pathway). Deviations from the abundancy–frequency relationships also indicated that species of the Panicoideae sub-family, species with Triazine-resistant populations, and neophyte species were more abundant than expected by their regional frequency. To some extent, it is therefore possible to predict which species can be troublesome in maize crops and use this information in weed risk assessment tools to prevent new introductions or favor early detection and eradication. This study showed how tools developed in functional and macro-ecology can be used to improve our understanding of weed ecology and to develop more preventive management strategies.
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spelling pubmed-70202072020-03-09 Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France Fried, Guillaume Chauvel, Bruno Munoz, François Reboud, Xavier Plants (Basel) Article A major aim in invasion biology is identifying traits distinguishing alien invasive and alien non-invasive plants. Surprisingly, this approach has been, so far, poorly used to understand why some arable weeds are abundant and widespread while others are rare and narrowly distributed. In the present study, we focused on the characteristics of successful weeds occurring in maize fields, one of the most important crops worldwide. Two national weed surveys conducted in France were used to identify increasing and decreasing species based on 175 and 484 surveyed fields in the 1970s and the 2000s, respectively. Weed trait values related to regional frequency, local abundance, and specialization to maize were identified with phylogenetic generalized least-squares (PGLS). We found a positive relationship between regional frequency and local abundance, i.e., the most widespread weeds were also locally more abundant. We highlighted that weeds with the C4 photosynthetic pathway and summer emergence were more abundant, more frequent, and more specialized to maize crops. More generally, we highlighted two successful strategies: On the one hand, traits related to a general weediness syndrome with rapid resource acquisition (high SLA and Ellenberg-N) and high colonization capacity (seed longevity, fecundity, and wind dispersal); on the other hand, traits related to specific adaptation to spring cultivation (thermophilous species with summer emergence, late flowering, and C4 photosynthetic pathway). Deviations from the abundancy–frequency relationships also indicated that species of the Panicoideae sub-family, species with Triazine-resistant populations, and neophyte species were more abundant than expected by their regional frequency. To some extent, it is therefore possible to predict which species can be troublesome in maize crops and use this information in weed risk assessment tools to prevent new introductions or favor early detection and eradication. This study showed how tools developed in functional and macro-ecology can be used to improve our understanding of weed ecology and to develop more preventive management strategies. MDPI 2019-12-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7020207/ /pubmed/31881706 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9010040 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fried, Guillaume
Chauvel, Bruno
Munoz, François
Reboud, Xavier
Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title_full Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title_fullStr Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title_full_unstemmed Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title_short Which Traits Make Weeds More Successful in Maize Crops? Insights from a Three-Decade Monitoring in France
title_sort which traits make weeds more successful in maize crops? insights from a three-decade monitoring in france
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7020207/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31881706
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9010040
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