Abstract
AbstractThe annual plant Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan balsam) is the most widespread invasive non‐native weed in the British Isles. Manual control is widely used, but is costly and laborious. Recently, biological control using the rust fungus Puccinia komarovii var. glanduliferae has been trialled. We designed an experiment to assess the impact of these control methods on invertebrate communities in relation to unmanaged and uninvaded habitats, and to determine whether mycorrhizal inoculation aided post‐control recovery of these communities. Sixty invaded and twenty uninvaded field soil blocks were transplanted to the experiment site, where a mycorrhizal inoculum was added to half of all blocks. Biological and mechanical control treatments were applied to twenty invaded blocks independently; the twenty remaining invaded blocks were left intact. Above‐ and belowground invertebrate samples were collected from the blocks at the end of the growing season. Overall, aboveground invertebrate abundance increased with the removal of I. glandulifera, and several groups showed signs of recovery within one growing season. The effect of mechanical control was more variable in belowground invertebrates. Biological control did not affect aboveground invertebrate abundance but resulted in large increases in populations of belowground Collembola. Our experiment demonstrates that mechanical removal of I. glandulifera can cause rapid increases in invertebrate abundance and that its biological control with P. komarovii var. glanduliferae also has the potential to benefit native invertebrate communities.
Highlights
Invasive non-native plants cause significant ecological damage to the natural environments they invade (Vilà et al, 2011)
This study shows that above- and belowground invertebrate communities respond differently, but quickly, to the presence and subsequent removal of I. glandulifera, and that the abundance of different groups may be negatively, positively, or negligibly affected by control measures after just one growing season
Our results demonstrate that I. glandulifera control in the form of mechanical removal of the aboveground biomass had a positive effect on total aboveground invertebrate abundance and may have contributed to a partial reversal in the impacts of invasion
Summary
Invasive non-native plants cause significant ecological damage to the natural environments they invade (Vilà et al, 2011). Its success as an invasive species can be attributed to a number of factors, including high phenotypic plasticity (Skálová et al, 2012) and the ability to tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions Another competitive advantage comes from its rapid growth; with plants reaching up to 3 m, it is the tallest annual in Europe and can form dense monotypic stands that dominate riparian habitats (Beerling and Perrins, 1993) as well as damp woodlands and waste ground (Maule et al, 2000). Chemical herbicides are used and can be effective, but are restricted close to water courses, and their non-specificity results in bare ground and soil erosion (Kelly et al, 2008) This is a problem associated with manual whole-plant removal, a common practice that can leave riverbanks without any stabilising root systems (Tanner, 2017). The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of I. glandulifera control (both biological and mechanical) and of a potential habitat restoration approach (mycorrhizal inoculum addition) on native invertebrate communities
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