Responses of invasive and native plants to different forms and availability of phosphorus

Abstract

Premise: Many studies have assessed the various responses of alien plants to changes in overall nutrient or different nitrogen (N) availabilities. However, in natural soils, nutrients are present as different elements (e.g., N and phosphorus [P]) and forms (e.g., inorganic and organic). Few studies have explored whether invasive and native species differ in their responses to varying P availability and forms. Methods: We grew five taxonomically related pairs of common herbaceous, invasive and native species alone or in competition under six different conditions of P availability or forms and assessed their growth performance. Results: Invasive species overall did not produce more biomass than native species did in the various P conditions. However, the biomass response to organic forms of P was, relative to the response to inorganic forms of P, stronger for the invasive species than that for the native species and agreed with invasive species mainly allocating biomass to the root system under organic P conditions. Conclusions: While invasive species were not more promiscuous than the native species, they took great advantage of the organic P forms. Therefore, the invasion risk of alien species may increase in habitats with more organic P sources.

Soil phosphorus form affects the advantages that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi confer on the invasive plant species, Solidago canadensis, over its congener

“…First, P fractions vary by ecosystem (Song et al, 2007;Azene et al, 2022). We found that organic P facilitated growth of the invasive Solidago to a greater extent than inorganic P, which is in accordance with previous studies (Yang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2022). Accordingly, ecosystems with higher organic P might carry a higher risk of plant invasion.…”

“…First, native and invasive species exhibit a preference for different AMF taxa due to evolutionary and host filtering (Lekberg et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2017), and may preferentially reward (e.g., provide carbohydrate or fatty acids) more beneficial microbial partners when faced with fluctuating soil nutrients, resulting in shifts in AMF communities (Johnson, 2010). Second, native and invasive plants grown in soil containing heterogeneous forms of P may differ in their plasticity to adjust root architecture and allocation (Yang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2022), which both govern interactions with AMF (Bergmann et al, 2020). Third, invasive species may also release greater concentrations of root chemical signaling compounds, such as flavonoids and strigolactones than native species, enhancing communications with mycorrhizal fungi (Inderjit et al, 2021;.…”

“…Thus, the key role of soil P availability in mediating the invasive plant-AMF interaction is well accepted (Chen et al, 2020). However, soil P exists in a range of inorganic and organic compounds (Song et al, 2007;Azene et al, 2022), and different forms of P differ distinctly in their efficacy on invasive plant growth and AMF metabolism and functions (Yang et al, 2020;Qi et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022). Additionally, existing evidence regarding soil nutrient-modulated plant-AMF interactions has typically focused on mycorrhizal colonization or hyphal density (Chen et al, 2020;Ma et al, 2020), while ignoring mycorrhizal response may also depend on complex microbial interactions (Chaudhary et al, 2022).…”

“…Invasive Solidago can maintain its dominance across a range of soil nutrient environments (Dong et al, 2006a), including inorganic P-dominant and organic P-dominant habits (Yang et al, 2020). Although previous studies found that S. canadensis can benefit more from organic than inorganic P (Yang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2022) and perform better compared with the native species S. decurrens under diverse nutrient conditions , few studies have explicitly tested whether this is associated with AMF community.…”

Soil microbes mediate the effects of resource variability on plant invasion

“…Empirical evidence suggests that a fluctuating nutrient supply enhanced root growth more than constant supply under a low average nutrient availability, while the reverse was true under high nutrient conditions (Dener et al, 2016). Considering that successful nonnative species typically exhibit greater root‐growth plasticity in response to nutrient changes (Davidson et al, 2011; Liu & van Kleunen, 2017; Zhang, Pan, et al, 2022), they should benefit more from a fluctuating nutrient supply in low nutrient environments than in high nutrient ones. If true, this could explain the mixed findings of previous studies, which predominantly tested the fluctuating resource hypothesis under relatively high average nutrient conditions.…”