Abstract
BackgroundFast growing invasive alien species are highly efficient with little investment in their tissues. They often outcompete slower growing species with severe consequences for diversity and community composition. The plant economics trait-based approach provides a theoretical framework, allowing the classification of plants with different performance characteristics. However, in multifaceted background, this approach needs testing. The evaluation and prediction of plant performance outcomes in ecologically relevant settings is among the most pressing topics to understand and predict ecosystem functioning, especially in a quickly changing environment. Temperature and nutrient availability are major components of the global environmental change and this study examines the response of growth economic traits, photosynthesis and respiration to such changes for an invasive fast-growing (Bromus hordaceus) and a slow-growing perennial (Bromus erectus) grass species.ResultsThe fully controlled growth chamber experiment simulated temperature—and changes in nitrogen availability individually and in combination. We therefore provide maximum control and monitoring of growth responses allowing general growth trait response patterns to be tested. Under optimal nitrogen availability the slow growing B. erectus was better able to handle the lower temperatures (7 °C) whilst both species had problems at higher temperatures (30 °C). Stresses produced by a combination of heat and nutrient availability were identified to be less limiting for the slow growing species but the combination of chilling with low nutrient availability was most detrimental to both species.ConclusionsFor the fast-growing invader B. hordeaceus a reduction of nitrogen availability in combination with a temperature increase, leads to limited growth performance in comparison to the slow-growing perennial species B.erectus and this may explain why nutrient-rich habitats often experience more invasion than resource-poor habitats.
Highlights
Fast growing invasive alien species are highly efficient with little investment in their tissues
We can support our initial hypothesis that nitrogen limitation will limit growth performance independent of growth strategy because we saw that the 50% reduction of N-availability at optimal temperature decreased Relative growth rate (RGR) to the same amount in both species
As an additional explanation it needs to be considered that the nitrogen availability was reduced to 50% in the growth units, the nutrient availability was still higher than it would be within a nitrogen depletion scenario in natural conditions
Summary
Fast growing invasive alien species are highly efficient with little investment in their tissues. The ‘plant economics spectrum’ concept provides the theoretical framework to arrange plant species from the ‘fast’ end of the productivity‐persistence trade‐off axis to taxa with ‘slow’, conservative life traits. It integrates across leaves, stems and roots and is a key feature helping to explain individual ecological traits, community assembly processes and the functioning of ecosystems [48]. Fast-growing species are highly efficient in transporting water, in acquiring and using nutrients and in fixing carbon, but invest less in their tissues (whether root, stem, or leaf ). A plants economy is determined by its handling/usage of three key resources: carbon, water, and mineral nutrients, and the most critical functional and eco-physiological traits relevant to these
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