Invader presence disrupts the stabilizing effect of species richness in plant community recovery after drought

Abstract

Higher biodiversity can stabilize the productivity and functioning of grassland communities when subjected to extreme climatic events. The positive biodiversity-stability relationship emerges via increased resistance and/or recovery to these events.However, invader presence might disrupt this diversity-stability relationship by altering biotic interactions. Investigating such disruptions is important given that invasion by non-native species and extreme climatic events are expected to increase in the future due to anthropogenic pressure. Here we present one of the first multisite invader × biodiversity × drought manipulation experiment to examine combined effects of biodiversity and invasion on drought resistance and recovery at three semi-natural grassland sites across Europe. The stability of biomass production to an extreme drought manipulation (100% rainfall reduction; BE: 88 days, BG: 85 days, DE: 76 days) was quantified in field mesocosms with a richness gradient of 1, 3, and 6 species and three invasion treatments (no invader, Lupinus polyphyllus, Senecio inaequidens). Our results suggest that biodiversity stabilized community productivity by increasing the ability of native species to recover from extreme drought events. However, invader presence turned the positive and stabilizing effects of diversity on native species recovery into a neutral relationship. This effect was independent of the two invader's

Salt and Water Stress Responses in Plants

“…Recovery: Drought stress conditions may vary in duration, but when rainfall does commence the ability of a genotype (or crop variety) to recover quickly and resume active growth is an important character. In rice, recovery capacity from drought is strongly related with characters such as vegetative growth vigor, high tillering ability, shallow root system and rather long growth duration [116]. Similar characters have been observed in different annual and perennial species, in wheat, sugarcane etc.…”

Vegetation ecology with anthropic drivers and consequences

“…Vegetation ecologists often focus on the invasibility of plant communities (e.g. Catford et al, 2019), interactions with extant vegetation (Proença et al, 2019), the consequences of invasion in terms of change to community structure and diversity (Vetter et al, 2020; Yu et al, 2016), and the ways in which invasive species are managed (e.g. Mikulyuk et al, 2020).…”

Potential distributions of invasive vertebrates in the Iberian Peninsula under projected changes in climate extreme events

“…The changing climate is leading to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of climate extremes (Fonseca et al, 2016;Vicente-Serrano et al, 2014), which in turn are driving abrupt ecological changes resulting in range shifts in species from a variety of taxa (Ummenhoffer & Meehl, 2017). In particular, extreme weather or climatic events such as heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation, floods or tsunamis may facilitate the spread and establishment of invaders by (a) allowing them to reach further distances (Čuda et al, 2017), even new regions (Carlton et al, 2017), (b) opening new niches that they can quickly fill (Straub et al, 2019) and (c) creating stressful conditions leading to reduced competition and predation that diminishes the biotic resistance of communities (Vetter et al, 2020). (See review by Diez et al (2012) for a deeper understanding of these invasion mechanisms linked to climate extremes.…”