Abstract
Evolutionary experience and the phylogenetic relationships of plants have both been proposed to influence herbivore–plant interactions and plant invasion success. However, the direction and magnitude of these effects, and how such patterns are altered with increasing temperature, are rarely studied. Through laboratory functional response experiments, we tested whether the per capita feeding efficiency of an invasive generalist herbivore, the golden apple snail, Pomacea canaliculata, is dependent on the biogeographic origin and phylogenetic relatedness of host plants, and how increasing temperature alters these dependencies. The feeding efficiency of the herbivore was highest on plant species with which it had no shared evolutionary history, that is, novel plants. Further, among evolutionarily familiar plants, snail feeding efficiency was higher on those species more closely related to the novel plants. However, these biogeographic dependencies became less pronounced with increasing temperature, whereas the phylogenetic dependence was unaffected. Collectively, our findings indicate that the susceptibility of plants to this invasive herbivore is mediated by both biogeographic origin and phylogenetic relatedness. We hypothesize that warming erodes the influence of evolutionary exposure, thereby altering herbivore–plant interactions and perhaps the invasion success of plants.
Highlights
Evolutionary experience is an important mediator of species in‐ teractions and commonly invoked to explain the success and impacts of biological invasions (Carthey & Banks, 2014; Ehrlich &Raven, 1964; Pearse & Altermatt, 2013; Saul & Jeschke, 2015; Verhoeven, Biere, Harvey, & Putten, 2009)
In this study, we use functional response (FR) to test (a) whether an invasive generalist herbivore prefers to feed on evolu‐ tionarily novel plants; (b) whether its feeding rate is related to the phylogenetic relatedness of the host plants; and (c) how increasing temperatures affect the effects of plant biogeography and phylog‐ eny on herbivore feeding efficiency
The feeding rate of P. canaliculata was higher for plant species more closely re‐ lated to the palatable novel plants, and this trend was unaffected by warmer temperatures
Summary
Evolutionary experience is an important mediator of species in‐ teractions and commonly invoked to explain the success and impacts of biological invasions A meta‐analysis found that native generalist herbivores preferentially consumed exotic plants (Parker & Hay, 2005), whereas exotic her‐ bivores preferentially consumed native plants (Parker, Burkepile, & Hay, 2006), conferring a competitive advantage to invading plants (Parker et al, 2006) through indirect facilitation (Simberloff & Von Holle, 1999) Such evolutionary mismatches render naïve plants par‐ ticularly susceptible to herbivory (hereafter termed the “novel in‐ teraction hypothesis” (Buckley & Catford, 2016; Carthey & Banks, 2014; Saul & Jeschke, 2015; Verhoeven et al, 2009)). In this study, we use FRs to test (a) whether an invasive generalist herbivore prefers to feed on evolu‐ tionarily novel plants; (b) whether its feeding rate is related to the phylogenetic relatedness of the host plants; and (c) how increasing temperatures affect the effects of plant biogeography and phylog‐ eny on herbivore feeding efficiency
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