Effects of belowground resource use comlementarity on invasion of constructed grassland plant communities |
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Authors: | Cynthia S Brown Kevin J Rice |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA;(2) Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA;(3) Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA;(4) The Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA |
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Abstract: | At two field sites that differed in fertility, we investigated how species richness, functional group diversity, and species
composition of constructed plant communities influenced invasion. Grassland communities were constructed to be either functionally
diverse or functionally simple based on belowground resource use patterns of constituent species. Communities were also constructed
with different numbers of species (two or five) to examine interactions between species richness, functional diversity and
invasion resistance. We hypothesized that communities with more complementary belowground resource use (i.e., more species
rich and more functionally diverse communities) would be less easily invaded than communities with greater degrees of belowground
resource use overlap. Two contrasting invasive species were introduced: an early-season, shallow rooting annual grass, Bromus hordeaceus (soft chess), and a late-season, deep rooting annual forb, Centaurea solstitialis (yellow starthistle). Invader responses to species richness and functional diversity treatments differed between sites. In
general, the more similar the patterns of belowground resource use between residents of the plant community and the invader,
the poorer the invader’s performance. Complementarity or overlap of resource use among species in the constructed communities
appeared to affect invader success less than complementarity or overlap of resource use between the invader and the species
present in the community. |
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