Evolution of increased competitive ability may explain dominance of introduced species in ruderal communities

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985939%3A_____%2F22%3A00560922" target="_blank" >RIV/67985939:_____/22:00560922 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1524" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1524</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1524" target="_blank" >10.1002/ecm.1524</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Evolution of increased competitive ability may explain dominance of introduced species in ruderal communities

Original language description

The evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA) hypothesis encapsulates the importance of evolution and ecology for biological invasions. According to this proposition, leaving specialist herbivores at home frees introduced plant species from investing limited resources in defense to instead use those resources for growth, selecting for individuals with reduced defense, enhanced growth, and, consequently, increased competitive ability. We took a multi-species approach, including ancestral and non-native populations of seven weeds, as well as seven coexisting local weeds, to explore all three predictions (i.e., lower defense, greater growth, and better ability to compete in non-native than ancestral populations), the generality as an invasion mechanism for a given system, and community-level consequences of EICA. We assessed plant defenses by conducting herbivory trials with a generalist herbivore. Therefore, finding that non-native populations are better defended than ancestral populations would lend support to the shifting defense (SD) hypothesis, an extension of EICA that incorporates the observation that introduced species escape specialists, but encounter generalists. We also manipulated water additions to evaluate how resource availability influences competition in the context of EICA and plant plasticity in our semiarid system. We found that non-native populations of one study species, Centaurea solstitialis, were better defended, grew faster, and exerted stronger suppression on locals than ancestral populations, offering support to EICA through the SD hypothesis. The other species also displayed variation in trait attributes between ancestral and nonnative populations, but they did not fully comply with the three predictions of EICA. Notably, differences between those populations generally favored the non-natives. Moreover, non-native populations were, overall, superior at suppressing locals relative to ancestral populations under low water conditions. There were no differences in plasticity among all three groups.These results suggest that evolutionary change between ancestral and non-native populations is widespread and could have facilitated invasion in our system. Additionally, although trading growth for shifted defense does not seem to be the main operational path for evolutionary change, it may explain the dominance of some introduced species in ruderal communities. Because introduced species dominate communities in disturbed environments around the world, our results are likely generalizable to other systems.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

<a href="/en/project/EF16_027%2F0007852" target="_blank" >EF16_027/0007852: MOBILITY 2017</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Ecological Monographs

ISSN

0012-9615

e-ISSN

1557-7015

Volume of the periodical

92

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

19

Pages from-to

e1524

UT code for WoS article

000803068100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85131014297