Abstract
Invasive plants represent a significant financial burden for land managers and also have the potential to severely degrade ecosystems. Arthropods interact strongly with plants, relying on them for food, shelter, and as nurseries for their young. For these reasons, the impacts of plant invasions are likely strongly reflected by arthropod community dynamics including diversity and abundances. A systematic review was conducted to ascertain the state of the literature with respect to plant invaders and their associated arthropod communities. We found that the majority of studies did not biogeographically contrast arthropod community dynamics from both the home and away ranges and that studies were typically narrow in scope, focusing only on the herbivore feeding guild, rather than assessing two or more trophic levels. Importantly, relative arthropod richness was significantly reduced on invasive plant species. Phylogenetic differences between the invasive and local plant community as well as the plant functional group impact arthropod diversity patterns. A framework highlighting some interaction mechanisms between multiple arthropod trophic levels and native and invasive plants is discussed and future research directions relating to these interactions and the findings herein are proposed.
Highlights
Invasion is a worldwide epiphenomenon as a consequence of both significant dispersal and global change, and the environmental costs are staggering (Mack et al 2000; Pimentel et al 2000; Pimentel et al 2005; Colautti et al 2006)
We propose that a powerful evaluation of plant invasion processes can be achieved by documenting whole arthropod community dynamics in the native and introduced range of a plant invader
We explored whether: (1) biogeographical contrasts of the arthropod communities associated with invasive plants are under-utilized in the invasion biology literature; (2) arthropod sampling is biased to the herbivore feeding guild and largely ignores the arthropod community as a whole; (3) relative richness of arthropods associated with invasive plants is lower than commonly found on native plants; and (4) phylogenetic differences between the invasive plant and the local plant community and the plant functional group of the invader have the capacity to impact arthropod diversity
Summary
Invasion is a worldwide epiphenomenon as a consequence of both significant dispersal and global change, and the environmental costs are staggering (Mack et al 2000; Pimentel et al 2000; Pimentel et al 2005; Colautti et al 2006). One of the most widely invoked explanations for the success of invasive plants is the enemy release or escape-from-enemies hypothesis (hereafter referred to as the enemy release hypothesis, ERH) that posits that natural enemies (e.g. pathogens and herbivorous arthropods) do not follow invaders from their native range into their introduced range and are not able to suppress their expansion (Elton 1958; Crawley 1987; Maron and Vilà 2001; Keane and Crawley 2002; Wolfe 2002). Invasive species may achieve pronounced vigour and growth in their introduced ranges (Baker 1974; Noble 1989; Blossey and Notzold 1995; but see Vilà et al 2005) or more importantly relative numerical dominance (Barney and DiTomaso 2008; Siemann and Rogers 2006). Insects are assumed to be the dominant herbivores associated with invasive plants (McEvoy and Coombs 1999; McEvoy 2002)
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