Tag Archive for: Invader

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New Paper in ‘Oecologia’

An exotic invasive plant selects for increased competitive tolerance, but not competitive suppression, in a native grass

Fletcher, Callaway & Atwater (pdf)

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At each of four sites, bluebunch from knapweed invaded plots (I) had much better ability to tolerate knapweed than those from uninvaded plots (U). However they were not better at suppressing knapweed.

Many congratulations to Rebecca Fletcher, who just had a paper accepted into Oecologia. Her paper shows that spotted knapweed, an invasive plant, selects for bluebunch wheatgrass plants that are tolerant of knapweed competition, but not for ones that are better at competitively suppressing knapweed.

This is the first direct test of the hypothesis that neighbor suppression does not provide fitness benefits to competing plants. Her finding is important because it challenges long-held notions of what makes a plant a good competitor. Becky performed this research as an undergraduate student at the University of Montana, on a grant she wrote for the Montana Integrative Research Experience for Students (MILES) program.

 

 

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New Paper in ‘Weed Research’

Propagule pressure alone cannot always overcome biotic resistance: The role of density-dependent establishment in four invasive species

Barney, Ho & Atwater (link)
I am very pleased to announce that we have just had a paper accepted for publication into Weed Research. This paper documents Master’s Student Matt Ho’s research into the role of propagule pressure in invasion. He found that negative density-dependent germination probability causes diminishing returns for species that broadcast a large number of seeds. His results suggest that site conditions and species interactions play an important role in determining invasion probability even when propagule pressure is intense.

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Invasion probability increases as the number of seeds (aka propagule size) increases. When germination is density dependent (solid line), invasion probability increases much more gradually than when it is not (dashed line). This means that site conditions play a very important role in determining invasion probability, even when propagule pressure is high.

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New Paper in ‘Ecography’

Reconstructing changes in the genotype, phenotype, and climatic niche of an introduced species

Atwater, Sezen, Goff, Kong, Paterson & Barney (link)

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The climate occupied by initial invaders (black, dashed) resembled the home climate (black, solid). As the invasion progressed, Johnsongrass moved into cooler habitats in the US (grey, solid & dashed). Noteably, these are not climates Johnsongrass occupies in its native range in Eurasia, although they are available. How invasive species change their climatic niches in their introduced ranges is a mystery.

Invasive species must deal with enormous environmental variation in their introduced ranges. Some evolve rapidly, and others tolerate a wide variety of conditions. We examined how one invader, Johnsongrass, has responded to environmental variation in North America. This devastating agricultural weed is ever-present in the fields, roadsides and railways of the United States.

Almost 500 individual Johnsongrass plants collected from 70 locations in the United States show enormous variation in their size and shape. Plants from cool, wet climates grow especially large, growing 10 feet tall and gaining almost 5 pounds of dry weight in a single year. Plants from agricultural habitats grew much larger and taller than those from roadside habitats and meadows, and responded differently to growing conditions.

These results paint the clearest picture to date of how an introduced species changes genetically and phenotypically as it encounters habitat variation in their introduced range. Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity play important roles in the ability of Johnsongrass to invade the United States.

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