Invasive plants negatively impact native, but not exotic, animals

Abstract

Despite our growing understanding of the impacts of invasive plants on ecosystem structure and function, important gaps remain, including whether native and exotic species respond differently to plant invasion. This would elucidate basic ecological interactions and inform management. We performed a meta‐analytic review of the effects of invasive plants on native and exotic resident animals. We found that invasive plants reduced the abundance of native, but not exotic, animals. This varied by animal phyla, with invasive plants reducing the abundance of native annelids and chordates, but not mollusks or arthropods. We found dissimilar impacts among “wet” and “dry” ecosystems, but not among animal trophic levels. Additionally, the impact of invasive plants increased over time, but this did not vary with animal nativity. Our review found that no studies considered resident nativity differences, and most did not identify animals to species. We call for more rigorous studies of invaded community impacts across taxa, and most importantly, explicit consideration of resident biogeographic origin. We provide an important first insight into how native and exotic species respond differently to invasion, the consequences of which may facilitate cascading trophic disruptions further exacerbating global change consequences to ecosystem structure and function.

Disentangling the effects of plant species invasion and urban development on arthropod community composition

“…Invaded communities had substantially higher arthropod abundance and equal species richness levels compared to uninvaded sites. These results were in line with a meta‐analysis by Fletcher et al (2019), who detected no significant negative effects of invasive plants species on either native or exotic arthropods, as opposed to Litt et al (2014) who concluded that a majority of arthropod studies report decreasing richness and abundance levels following plant invasion. The detected increase in arthropod abundance and absence of a negative effect on species richness in this study may be explained by the extremely high standing biomass that A. leptopus produces (Ernst & Ketner, 2007) which may provide arthropods with more and novel microclimatic niches, in which temperature and humidity regimes could favor species from particular feeding guilds or arthropods in general (de Groot, Kleijn, & Jogan, 2007).…”

Geographical patterns in phylogenetic diversity of Chinese woody plants and its application for conservation planning

“…Studies have also highlighted the positive relationship between feature diversity and biodiversity option values—the potential unanticipated needs that future generations may be able to benefit from biodiversity (International Union for Conservation of Nature, & World Wildlife Fund, 1980). Studies indicate that species with different features will have different adaptations and resilience capacity to respond to biodiversity change drivers (such as climate change, habitat fragmentation and biological invasion, Fletcher et al., 2019; Groot et al., 2007; Liao, Bearup, & Blasius, 2014; Yachi & Loreau, 1999), and therefore, communities with higher feature diversity tend to ensure a larger range of option values in the long term (Forest et al., 2007). Due to the positive linkage between feature and PD, these findings suggest that PD can also reflect biodiversity option values.…”

Efficacy of five herbicide treatments for control ofPyrus calleryana

“…Nonnative plant invasions in agricultural and natural ecosystems have a multibillion dollar annual impact (Pimentel et al 2005) and can negatively affect ecosystem productivity and services, human well-being, and native flora and fauna (Fletcher et al 2019;Pejchar and Mooney 2009;Pyšek et al 2012;Rai and Singh 2020). Invasive plants are cosmopolitan across most of the forested regions in the United States (Oswalt et al 2015), and there is much work to do to educate landowners and managers to improve awareness of invasive plant problems (e.g., Clarke et al 2019;Fischer and Charnley 2012).…”