Biomass responses of widely and less‐widely naturalized alien plants to artificial light at night

Speißer, Benedikt; Liu, Yanjie; Kleunen, Mark van

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13607

Cited by 31 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Interestingly, while the less widely naturalized alien plants were smaller overall, they responded positively to artificial light when grown alone and in competition with other species. Speißer et al (2020) investigated plant species that are alien at their study site in Germany, but our research is the first to investigate how artificial light affects cheatgrass, which is an important invasive species in North America.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These changes in phenology and physiology likely alter plant community structure if plants vary in their responses to artificial light (Bennie et al, 2018). Artificial light also affects plant-plant interactions, such as competition for resources, and thereby alters competitive outcomes between species (Speißer et al, 2020). Artificial light can influence plant-animal interactions, which may cascade to affect how herbivores interact with their host plants and thus alter plant community structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Streetlights positively affect the presence of an invasive grass species

Murphy

Vyas

Hoffman

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Streetlights positively affect the presence of an invasive grass species

Murphy

Vyas

Hoffman

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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“…In many cases, ALAN (e.g. street lighting) is sufficiently bright to induce a photosynthetic response 15 , and thus could directly influence growth and resource allocation of plants 6,15 . Given that such direct impacts generally vary among plant species 12,15,16 , ALAN is likely to affect the composition of the vegetation 16 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…street lighting) is sufficiently bright to induce a photosynthetic response 15 , and thus could directly influence growth and resource allocation of plants 6,15 . Given that such direct impacts generally vary among plant species 12,15,16 , ALAN is likely to affect the composition of the vegetation 16 . Therefore, it is not unlikely that ALAN may also influence alien and native plants differently, and consequently affect the process of alien plant invasion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Matthew effect: common species become more common and rare ones become more rare in response to artificial light at night

Liu

Speißer

Knop

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Artificial light at night (ALAN) has been and still is rapidly spreading, and has become an important component of global change. Although numerous studies have tested its potential biological and ecological impacts on animals, fewer have tested its impacts on plants, and very few studies have tested whether it affects alien and native plants differently. Furthermore, common plant species, and particularly common alien species, are often found to benefit more from additional resources than rare native and rare alien species. Whether this is also the case with regard to increasing light due to ALAN is still unknown. Here, we tested how ALAN affects the performance of common and rare alien and native plants directly and indirectly via flying insects. We grew five common alien, six rare alien, five common native and four rare native plant species under four combinations of two ALAN (no ALAN vs ALAN) and two insect-exclusion (no exclusion vs exclusion) treatments, and compared their biomass production. We found that common plant species, irrespective of whether they are alien or native, produced significantly more biomass than rare species, particularly under ALAN. Furthermore, alien species tended to show a slightly stronger positive response to ALAN than native species (marginally significant interaction between origin and ALAN, p = 0.079). Our study shows that common plant species benefited more from ALAN than rare ones. This might lead to shifts in plant diversity and vegetation composition, further propelling global biodiversity decline, when ALAN becomes more widespread. In addition, the slightly more positive response of alien species indicates that ALAN might increase the risk of alien plant invasions.

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“…Due to the rapid globalization, the increase in the number of naturalized alien plant species does not show any sign of saturation, and it was recently predicted that their numbers may increase on average by 18% from 2005 to 2050 (Seebens et al 2017, Gippet and Bertelsmeier 2021. Therefore, a major research objective in the field of ecology is to identify the mechanisms that underlie alien plant invasion (Catford et al 2009, Schultheis et al 2015, Liu and van Kleunen 2019, Enders et al 2020, Speißer et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactive effects of herbivory and the level and fluctuations of nutrient availability on dominance of alien plants in synthetic native communities

Yan-jun

Gao

Kleunen

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Numerous studies have tested the fluctuating resource hypothesis and highlighted the role of nutrient availability and fluctuations therein for invasion success of alien plants. Others have tested the enemy-release hypothesis and highlighted the role of herbivores in invasion success. However, how herbivory and the level and fluctuations in nutrient availability interact in driving alien plant invasion into resident communities remains largely unexplored. We grew eight invasive alien species as target species in pot‐mesocosms with five different synthetic native communities in a three-factorial design with two levels of nutrient availability (low vs high), two levels of nutrient fluctuations (constant vs pulsed) and two levels of herbivory (with vs without). Increases in nutrient availability, irrespective of whether it was constant or pulsed, significantly increased the absolute biomass production of the alien and native plants. The presence of herbivores, on the other hand, significantly decreased the biomass production of plants, in particular under high-nutrient availability. The relative biomass production of the alien target plants, on the other hand, decreased in response to an increase in nutrient availability, and increased in response to the presence of herbivores. We also found tentative evidence that herbivory could interact with changes in nutrient availability and nutrient fluctuations to affect the dominance of the alien target species (a marginally significant interaction; 90% CIs: [0.133, 2.745]). Our multispecies experiment indicates that herbivory could mediate the interactive effect of nutrient enrichment and variability in nutrient supply on invasion of alien plants into native communities. Therefore, we recommend that studies testing the fluctuating resources hypothesis should also consider interactive effect of other trophic levels.

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Biomass responses of widely and less‐widely naturalized alien plants to artificial light at night

Cited by 31 publications

References 57 publications

Streetlights positively affect the presence of an invasive grass species

Streetlights positively affect the presence of an invasive grass species

Matthew effect: common species become more common and rare ones become more rare in response to artificial light at night

Interactive effects of herbivory and the level and fluctuations of nutrient availability on dominance of alien plants in synthetic native communities

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