Species identity and diversity effects on invasion resistance of tropical freshwater plant communities

Antonella Petruzzella,Francisco De Assis Esteves,Casper H A Van Leeuwen,Marcos Paulo Figueiredo-Barros,Elisabeth S Bakker,Tauany A Da S S R Rodrigues

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-62660-1

Antonella Petruzzella, Francisco De Assis Esteves + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62660-1

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Abstract

Biotic resistance mediated by native plant diversity has long been hypothesized to reduce the success of invading plant species in terrestrial systems in temperate regions. However, still little is known about the mechanisms driving invasion patterns in other biomes or latitudes. We help to fill this gap by investigating how native plant community presence and diversity, and the presence of native phylogenetically closely related species to an invader, would affect invader Hydrilla verticillata establishment success in tropical freshwater submerged plant communities. The presence of a native community suppressed the growth of H. verticillata, but did not prevent its colonisation. Invader growth was negatively affected by native plant productivity, but independent of native species richness and phylogenetic relatedness to the invader. Native plant production was not related to native species richness in our study. We show that resistance in these tropical aquatic submerged plant communities is mainly driven by the presence and biomass of a native community independent of native species diversity. Our study illustrates that resistance provided by these tropical freshwater submerged plant communities to invasive species contrasts to resistance described for other ecosystems. This emphasizes the need to include understudied systems when predicting patterns of species invasiveness and ecosystem invasibility across biomes.

Highlights

Biotic resistance mediated by native plant diversity has long been hypothesized to reduce the success of invading plant species in terrestrial systems in temperate regions
Hydrilla verticillata had fragments with roots attached to the sediment in 5 out of 6 mesocosms with bare sediment (83.3% colonised), whereas 38 out of 42 planted treatments, i.e. 90.5% of the mesocosms, were successfully colonised even though a native plant community was present
Native community biomass affected total final invader biomass significantly negatively (Fig. 2, SE = 0.05), whereas native plant biomass was not related to native species richness (t = 0.44, P = 0.6613)

Summary

Introduction

Biotic resistance mediated by native plant diversity has long been hypothesized to reduce the success of invading plant species in terrestrial systems in temperate regions. Higher native diversity could provide biotic resistance by increasing the probability to have a better competitor or a more productive species present in a more diverse native community, a mechanism known as the sampling effect[19]. This hypothesis is largely supported in temperate regions where plant diversity has been experimentally manipulated[17,20,21], but there is little empirical evidence in tropical freshwater systems[22,23]

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