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Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient
Spatial variation in plant–herbivore interactions can be important in pest systems, particularly when insect herbivores are used as biological control agents to manage invasive plants. The geographic ranges of the invasive plant alligatorweed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) and its biological control...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338522/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32632176 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68108-w |
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author | Harms, Nathan Cronin, James |
author_facet | Harms, Nathan Cronin, James |
author_sort | Harms, Nathan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Spatial variation in plant–herbivore interactions can be important in pest systems, particularly when insect herbivores are used as biological control agents to manage invasive plants. The geographic ranges of the invasive plant alligatorweed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) and its biological control agent the alligatorweed flea beetle (Agasicles hygrophila) do not completely overlap in the southeastern USA, producing spatial heterogeneity in interaction strength that may be related to latitude-correlated environmental gradients. We studied this system near the range margin of the alligatorweed flea beetle to test whether spatial variation in alligatorweed density was best explained by agent mean or maximum density, variability in agent density, agent attack timing, or a combination of biological control and environmental (i.e., weather) variables. The pattern that emerged was that mean agent and host densities were negatively and positively associated with latitude, respectively. Variability in agent density increased with latitude and was positively correlated with host density. We further discovered that agent first attack timing was negatively correlated with winter and spring temperatures and spring and summer precipitation, and positively correlated with seasonal temperature extremes, which was then directly influential on agent density and variability in density, and indirectly on host density. This study demonstrates that, contrary to common wisdom, weather-related timing of agent activity and population variability, but not agent mean density, contribute to the spatial heterogeneity observed in alligatorweed populations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7338522 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73385222020-07-09 Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient Harms, Nathan Cronin, James Sci Rep Article Spatial variation in plant–herbivore interactions can be important in pest systems, particularly when insect herbivores are used as biological control agents to manage invasive plants. The geographic ranges of the invasive plant alligatorweed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) and its biological control agent the alligatorweed flea beetle (Agasicles hygrophila) do not completely overlap in the southeastern USA, producing spatial heterogeneity in interaction strength that may be related to latitude-correlated environmental gradients. We studied this system near the range margin of the alligatorweed flea beetle to test whether spatial variation in alligatorweed density was best explained by agent mean or maximum density, variability in agent density, agent attack timing, or a combination of biological control and environmental (i.e., weather) variables. The pattern that emerged was that mean agent and host densities were negatively and positively associated with latitude, respectively. Variability in agent density increased with latitude and was positively correlated with host density. We further discovered that agent first attack timing was negatively correlated with winter and spring temperatures and spring and summer precipitation, and positively correlated with seasonal temperature extremes, which was then directly influential on agent density and variability in density, and indirectly on host density. This study demonstrates that, contrary to common wisdom, weather-related timing of agent activity and population variability, but not agent mean density, contribute to the spatial heterogeneity observed in alligatorweed populations. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7338522/ /pubmed/32632176 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68108-w Text en © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as 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. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Harms, Nathan Cronin, James Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title | Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title_full | Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title_fullStr | Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title_full_unstemmed | Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title_short | Biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
title_sort | biological control agent attack timing and population variability, but not density, best explain target weed density across an environmental gradient |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7338522/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32632176 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68108-w |
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