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Rapid shifts in the chemical composition of aspen forests: an introduced herbivore as an agent of natural selection

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Abstract

The global ecological impacts of introduced and exotic species can be dramatic, leading to losses in biodiversity and ecosystem “meltdown”, however, the evolutionary impacts of introduced species are much less understood. Further, very few studies have examined whether mammalian herbivores can act as agents of natural selection for plant traits. We examined the hypothesis that variation in aspen phytochemistry resulted in selective herbivory by Cervus elaphus (elk), an introduced mammalian herbivore. With the experimental removal of a large elk exclosure, elk selectively eliminated 60% of an aspen population previously protected from herbivory resulting in a dramatic shift in the phytochemical composition of the aspen forest. Selection gradients (β) varied from 0.52 to 0.66, well above average relative to other studies of selection. These results indicate that introduced herbivores can have rapid evolutionary consequences even on long lived native species. Because there are fundamental links between phytochemistry, biodiversity and ecosystem processes, the effects of an introduced herbivore are likely to have cascading impacts on the services ecosystems provide.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Christy Grow and James Andrade for help in the field. Thanks to John Stinchcombe for helpful comments on the manuscript. This research was supported by National Science Foundation Integrative Research Challenges in Environmental Biology and Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research grants. A grant from the National Science Foundation (IOB 0421917) supported D. Irschick.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Joseph K. Bailey & Jennifer A. Schweitzer

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Joseph K. Bailey & Thomas G. Whitham

  3. School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Jennifer A. Schweitzer

  4. Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Joseph K. Bailey, Jennifer A. Schweitzer & Thomas G. Whitham

  5. Department of Chemistry, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, 21402, USA

    Brian J. Rehill

  6. Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Duncan J. Irschick

  7. Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Richard L. Lindroth

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  1. Joseph K. Bailey
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  2. Jennifer A. Schweitzer
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  3. Brian J. Rehill
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  4. Duncan J. Irschick
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  5. Thomas G. Whitham
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  6. Richard L. Lindroth
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Correspondence to Joseph K. Bailey.

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Bailey, J.K., Schweitzer, J.A., Rehill, B.J. et al. Rapid shifts in the chemical composition of aspen forests: an introduced herbivore as an agent of natural selection. Biol Invasions 9, 715–722 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-006-9071-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-006-9071-z

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