Nitrogen addition frequency and propagule pressure influence Solidago canadensis invasion into native plant community

Abstract

Introduction Propagule pressure (i.e., the number of propagules) has long been recognized to play an essential role in plant invasion. But it is not clear whether propagule pressure influences the invasion of exotic plants into native plant communities when different frequencies of nitrogen are added. Method We established an experiment with three plant communities that included native plant communities alone (four grasses, two legumes and two forbs) or native plant communities with one or five invasive plants, Solidago canadensis , under three frequencies of nitrogen addition (no addition or low or high addition with the same amount). Results High propagule pressure significantly enhanced the biomass and relative dominance index of S. canadensis . Moreover, high propagule pressure only decreased the total and aboveground biomass of the legumes. However, the competitive effect between S. canadensis and the native community and biomass of the whole native community varied according to different frequencies. Conclusion Overall, high propagule pressure encouraged invasion by S. canadensis , while alow nitrogen frequency was advantageous for the native community to resist invasion in this experiment. The results provide a scientific basis to manage and control the invasion of S. canadensis .

Physiology and transcriptome analysis of the response mechanism of Solidago canadensis to the nitrogen addition environment

“…Previous studies suggested that N levels can significantly affect the growth of S. canadensis ( Wan et al., 2018 ). The successful invasion of the exotic plant S. canadensis may be significantly affected by the N addition environment ( Liu X. S. et al, 2022 ). In this study, most plant growth- and development-related genes were differentially expressed in the N environment comparison groups.…”

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation exerts weak effects on species- and community-level growth traits for invading or native plants under nitrogen deposition

“…A stability may exist for the community assembled by the alien invader and native plants since the community could "tolerate" the environmental perturbation from N deposition and AMF inoculation (Ghedini and Connell, 2016). Previous studies on the effects of environmental perturbation on the invasibility of native plant community showed two contrast paradigms including: 1) the invader up and the native down, in which the invasion process strengthens; and 2) the invader down and the native up, in which the biotic resistance strengthens (Liu et al, 2018;Zheng et al, 2020;Gao et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021;Jin et al, 2022;Li et al, 2022b;Liu et al, 2022). However, the present study tends to show a balance between the alien invader and native plant community, especially considering the phenotypic maintenance of alien invader.…”

“…Likewise, biological invasion has been shown to have detrimental ecological effects such as the exclusion of native species and the alteration of community structure (Zhang and van Kleunen, 2019). Importantly, plant invasion success can be mediated through background nitrogen deposition across a range of different ecosystems (Valliere et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2022). Indeed, the resource fluctuation hypothesis predicts that N deposition may enhance the habitat resource availability and improve their hospitability for plant invasion (Davis et al, 2000).…”

“…Several studies have proposed that N deposition may have stressful effects on the diversity and/or productivity of native plant communities and reduce the biotic resistance of the native plant community to invasion (Zheng et al, 2020;Gao et al, 2021). Other studies have suggested the opposite, as N deposition promoted the growth of native plants, enhanced the productivity of native plant communities and benefited biotic resistance (Wang et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2022). Therefore, the plant-plant interactions including alien vs. native and native vs. native both affect the invasion dynamic.…”