Plant community responses to simultaneous changes in temperature, nitrogen availability, and invasion
Gornish, E. S., & Miller, T. E. (2015). Plant community responses to simultaneous changes in temperature, nitrogen availability, and invasion. PloS one, 10(4), e0123715. PDF.
Summary
The effects of climate change, such as warming, nitrogen deposition, and the impact of biological invasions, are often studied separately. However, these effects are not always additive and may instead interact to elicit varying responses between plant communities. To understand the synergistic effects of climate change and biological invasions, Gornish & Miller (2013) looked at the interacting effects of warming and increased nitrogen with invasive plant impacts in Florida. In both warming and nitrogen deposition treatments, plots invaded by a non-native perennial herb (Pityopsis aspera) had higher cover of other non-native plants than uninvaded plots, suggesting that climate change facilitates the spread of additional non-native species in invaded areas. Warming also lowered functional diversity in invaded plots, and the addition of nitrogen changed the direction of the difference in soil moisture and pH between invaded and uninvaded communities (soil moisture increased in nitrogen+invaded, soil pH decreased in nitrogen+invaded). Other community responses (e.g., similarity between community structures, herbivory, and disease) also differed between invaded and uninvaded sites, further suggesting that the impact of warming and nitrogen deposition on native communities may be more severe in invaded areas.
Take home points
Synergistic effects between climate change and biological invasions alter native plant communities, but the direction and magnitude of the impact depends on the composition of the native community.
Invaded plant communities may be more vulnerable to impact of warming and nitrogen deposition than uninvaded plant communities.
Management implications
Monitoring invaded areas for increasing cover of other non-native species could help protect vulnerable areas from subsequent invasions due to climate change.
Indirect effects of invasion (e.g., herbivory and disease) could become more pronounced in invaded areas due to interactions with climate change.
In general, information about synergistic effects of climate change and biological invasions is lacking. Thus, long-term monitoring of environmental and community factors in invaded and uninvaded plots will allow us to better understand this complex and often context-specific relationship.
Keywords
Range Expansion; Impact Study; Experiment; Invasive Plant; Terrestrial Habitat; Pityopsis aspera; Carolina Silkgrass