Impact of plant invasions on local arthropod communities: a meta‐analysis

Abstract

Summary 1.Invasive plants can have a major impact on local plant and animal communities. However, effects of plant invasions on arthropod communities and the potential drivers have rarely been studied. 2. We present a meta-analysis of 56 studies on the impact of plant invasions on abundance and richness of local arthropod communities. Moreover, we study the role of five invader and habitat attributes to assess their influence on the direction and magnitude of effect on arthropod communities: the time since introduction; woody vs. herbaceous invaders; presence of native congeners; canopy cover of the invader; and single vs. multiple invaders. 3. We found that overall invaded habitats had a 29% lower arthropod abundance and a 17% lower taxonomic richness compared with non-invaded habitats. Woody invaders had a stronger negative impact on arthropod communities than herbaceous invaders, reducing abundance and richness by as much as 55% and 21%, respectively. 4. Synthesis. Our study demonstrates that arthropod communities are negatively affected by plant invasions, which may have substantial effects on other ecosystem features, such as pollination, food web dynamics, decomposition as well as habitat heterogeneity. Loss of arthropod diversity is generally directly associated with loss of plant species richness. Therefore, the reduction we see could be causally connected to the effect of the invader on the habitat. The physical dominance of woody invaders compared with herbaceous invaders could be a main driver for this effect.

Using a botanical garden to assess factors influencing the colonization of exotic woody plants by phyllophagous insects

“…Similar observations had been previously made by a large number of authors (e.g., Carpenter and Cappuccino 2005;Liu and Stiling 2006;Parker and Gilbert 2007;Proches et al 2008;Sugiura 2010;Harvey et al 2012;Litt et al 2014;van Hengstum et al 2014;Cronin et al 2015). However, in a significant amount of other studies, no difference in herbivory damage or abundance was found between native and exotic plants, especially when only congeneric native and exotic plant species were compared (e.g., Novotny et al 2003;Hawkes 2007;Sugiura et al 2008;Chun et al 2010;Dostál et al 2013), suggesting that the release from herbivory in the region of introduction is not a general pattern for exotic plants (Bezemer et al 2014).…”

Invasive Spiraea tomentosa: a new host for monophagous Earias clorana?

“…shown a negative impact of neophytes on insects (Tallamy 2004;Casagrande and Dacey 2007;Keeler and Chew 2008;Tallamy et al 2010;Fortuna et al 2013), which is confirmed by meta-analyses showing that non-invaded habitats, in comparison to habitats with a high proportion of alien species, had higher total abundance and taxonomic richness of arthropods (Bezemer et al 2014;van Hengstum et al 2014;Litt et al 2014). In situations where the optimal host is a rare species or there is high competition for food, the cost of feeding on the optimal host may be large enough for an insect that it favours the strategy of increasing the number of potential host plants by utilising a new species (Mayhew 1997).…”

Density of invasive exotic palms affecting the understory avifauna in the Atlantic forest, Southeastern Brazil

“…A disponibilidade de artrópodes na folhagem e na serapilheira pode diminuir com o aumento na densidade de PEIs, prejudicando populações de espécies das guildas insetívoras (Hengstum et al, 2014). No caso dos insetívoros do solo, alterações nas condições microclimáticas, como sombreamento e umidade relativa do ar, podem influenciar nos padrões de distribuição (Volpato et al, 2006).…”