Abstract
Climate change causes species range expansions to higher latitudes and altitudes. It is expected that, due to differences in dispersal abilities between plants and soil biota, range-expanding plant species will become associated with a partly new belowground community in their expanded range. Theory on biological invasions predicts that outside their native range, range-expanding plant species may be released from specialist natural enemies, leading to the evolution of enhanced defence against generalist enemies. Here we tested the hypothesis that expanded range populations of the range-expanding plant species Centaurea stoebe accumulate fewer root-feeding nematodes than populations from the original range. Moreover, we examined whether Centaurea stoebe accumulates fewer root-feeding nematodes in expanded range soil than in original range soil. We grew plants from three expanded range and three original range populations of C. stoebe in soil from the original and from the new range. We compared nematode communities of C. stoebe with those of C. jacea, a congeneric species native to both ranges. Our results show that expanded range populations of C. stoebe did not accumulate fewer root-feeding nematodes than populations from the original range, but that C. stoebe, unlike C. jacea, accumulated fewest root-feeding nematodes in expanded range soil. Moreover, when we examined other nematode feeding groups, we found intra-specific plant population effects on all these groups. We conclude that range-expanding plant populations from the expanded range were not better defended against root-feeding nematodes than populations from the original range, but that C. stoebe might experience partial belowground enemy release.
Highlights
Current climate change affects the composition of terrestrial and aquatic communities worldwide by causing altitudinal and latitudinal range expansions of plant and animal species within continents (Chen et al 2011; Pinsky et al 2020; Steinbauer et al 2018)
We explored responses of nematode communities from a southern and a northern European soil to populations of Centaurea jacea, which is a native plant species across Europe, and Centaurea stoebe, which is expanding its range into northern Europe
Studies on introduced exotic species have shown that new range populations of non-native plant species may be better defended against generalist herbivores, at the expense of defence against specialist herbivores (Blossey and Notzold 1995; Doorduin and Vrieling 2011)
Summary
Current climate change affects the composition of terrestrial and aquatic communities worldwide by causing altitudinal and latitudinal range expansions of plant and animal species within continents (Chen et al 2011; Pinsky et al 2020; Steinbauer et al 2018). As a result of these intracontinental range expansions, terrestrial communities of plants and co-evolved aboveground and belowground organisms are likely to become re-assembled due to differences in dispersal abilities and habitat requirements between species (Berg et al 2010). A number of intracontinental range-expanding plant species have been shown to perform better in soil from the new than from the original range (van Grunsven et al 2010; Van Nuland et al 2017). The results of these plant–soil interactions of range-expanding plant species suggest that enemy release may take place during intracontinental range expansions
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