Abstract
Despite species in the Rubus fruticosus complex (wild blackberry) being among the most invasive plants globally in regions with large annual fluctuations in water availability, little is known about their water relations. We compared water relations of a prominent member of the complex, R. armeniacus (Himalayan blackberry), with species native to the Pacific Northwest of North America (PNW), R. spectabilis (salmonberry) and R. parviflorus (thimbleberry). In eight stands of each species located near Portland, Oregon, USA, we measured mid-day hydraulic resistance (R plant), and daily time series of stomatal conductance (g s), leaf water potential (Ψlf), and environmental conditions at four time periods spanning the 2007 growing season. Although all species maintained Ψlf above −0.5 MPa in spring, R. armeniacus maintained less negative Ψlf (≥−1.0 MPa) than the natives in summer, a factor attributable to advantages in both its root and shoot systems. R plant of R. armeniacus was ≤0.1 MPa mmol−1 m2 s for the duration of the study, and approximately 25–50% of R plant for the native species in summer. R. armeniacus had higher g s compared to the native species throughout the spring and summer, with approximately twice their rates in summer. Our R plant and g s results show that R. armeniacus has access to more water during PNW summers than congeneric natives, allowing it to maintain high water-use, and potentially helping it achieve higher growth and reproductive rates. Water relations may therefore be a critical component of the competitive and invasive success of R. armeniacus and other R. fruticosus species worldwide.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amor RL (1974) Ecology and control of blackberry (Rubus fruticosus L. agg.) II: reproduction. Weed Res 14:231–238
Amor RL, Stevens PL (1976) Spread of weeds from a roadside into sclerophyll forests at Dartmouth, Australia. Weed Res 16:111–118
Amor RL, Richardson RG, Pritchard GH, Bruzzese E (1998) Rubus fruticosus L. agg. In: Panetta FD, Groves RH, Shepherd RCH (eds) The biology of Australian weeds, vol 2. RG and FJ Richardson, Melbourne, Australia, pp 225–246
Anderson VJ, Briske DD (1990) Stomatal distribution, density and conductance of three perennial grasses native to the southern true prairie of Texas. Am Midl Nat 123:152–159
Benjamini Y, Hochberg Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J R Stat Soc Series B Stat Methodol 57:289–300
Boyer JS (1995) Measuring the water status of plants and soils. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA
Broshot NE (2007) The influence of urbanization on forest stand dynamics in Northwestern Oregon. Urban Ecosyst 10:285–298
Bruzzese E (1998) The biology of blackberry in south-eastern Australia. Plant Prot Q 13:160–162
Caplan JS (2009) The role of water and other resources in the invasion of Rubus armeniacus in Pacific Northwest ecosystems. Dissertation, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA
Caplan JS, Yeakley JA (2006) Rubus armeniacus (Himalayan blackberry) occurrence and growth in relation to soil and light conditions in western Oregon. Northwest Sci 80:9–17
Choné X, Van Leeuwen C, Dubourdieu D, Gaudillère JP (2001) Stem water potential is a sensitive indicator of grapevine water status. Ann Bot 87:477–483
Cordell S, Cabin RJ, Hadway LJ (2002) Physiological ecology of native and alien dry forest shrubs in Hawaii. Biol Invasions 4:387–396
Daehler CC (2003) Performance comparisons of co-occurring native and alien invasive plants: implications for conservation and restoration. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 34:183–211
Davis MA, Grime JP, Thompson K (2000) Fluctuating resources in plant communities: a general theory of invasibility. J Ecol 88:528–534
Deng X, Ye WH, Feng HL, Yang QH, Cao HL, Hui KY, Zhang Y (2004) Gas exchange characteristics of the invasive species Mikania micrantha and its indigenous congener M. cordata (Asteraceae) in South China. Bot Bull Acad Sin 45:213–220
Donovan LA, Richards JH, Linton MJ (2003) Magnitude and mechanisms of disequilibrium between predawn plant and soil water potentials. Ecology 84:463–470
Eggemeyer KD, Awada T, Wedin DA, Harvey FE, Zhou X (2006) Ecophysiology of two native invasive woody species and two dominant warm-season grasses in the semiarid grasslands of the Nebraska Sandhills. Int J Plant Sci 167:991–999
Ehrenfeld JG (2003) Effects of exotic plant invasions on soil nutrient cycling processes. Ecosystems 6:503–523
Fell KR, Rowson JM (1957) Anatomical studies in the genus Rubus. II. The anatomy of the leaf of R. fructicosus L. J Pharm Pharmacol 9:293–311
Fierke MK, Kauffman JB (2006) Invasive species influence riparian plant diversity along a successional gradient, Willamette River, Oregon. Nat Areas J 26:376–382
Fotelli MN, Geßler A, Peuke AD, Rennenberg H (2001) Drought affects the competitive interactions between Fagus sylvatica seedlings and an early successional species, Rubus fruticosus: responses of growth, water status and δ13C composition. New Phytol 151:427
Funk JL, Vitousek PM (2007) Resource-use efficiency and plant invasion in low-resource systems. Nature 446:1079–1081
Gray AN (2005) Eight nonnative plants in western Oregon forests: associations with environment and management. Environ Monit Assess 100:109–127
Groves RH (1998) Towards an integrated management system for blackberry (Rubus fruticosus L. agg.): introduction. Plant Prot Q 3:151–152
Hoshovsky MC (2000) Rubus discolor Weihe & Nees. In: Bossard CC, Randall JM, Hoshovsky MC (eds) Invasive plants of California’s wildlands. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA, pp 277–281
Jarvis PG (1976) The interpretation of the variations in leaf water potential and stomatal conductance found in canopies in the field. Philos Trans R Soc B 273:593–610
Jennings DL (1988) Raspberries and blackberries: their breeding, diseases, and growth. Academic Press, London
Jones H (1998) Stomatal control of photosynthesis and transpiration. J Exp Bot 49:387–398
Kloeppel BD, Abrams MD (1995) Ecophysiological attributes of the native Acer saccharum and the exotic Acer platanoides in urban oak forests in Pennsylvania, USA. Tree Physiol 15:739–746
Kolb KJ, Davis SD (1994) Drought tolerance and xylem embolism in co-occurring species of coastal sage and chaparral. Ecology 75:648–659
Kramer PJ, Boyer JS (1995) Water relations of plants and soils. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA
Law BE, Waring RH (1994) Combining remote sensing and climatic data to estimate net primary production across Oregon. Ecol Appl 4:717–728
Levitt J (1980) Responses of plants to environmental stress. II. Water, radiation, salt, and other stresses. Academic Press, New York, New York, USA
McDowell SCL (2002) Photosynthetic characteristics of invasive and noninvasive species of Rubus (Rosaceae). Am J Bot 89:1431–1438
McDowell SCL, Turner DP (2002) Reproductive effort in invasive and noninvasive Rubus. Oecologia 133:102–111
Nagel JM, Griffin KL (2004) Can gas-exchange characteristics help explain the invasive success of Lythrum salicaria? Biol Invasions 6:101–111
Nardini A, Salleo S, Trifilo P, Lo Gullo MA (2003) Water relations and hydraulic characteristics of three woody species co-occurring in the same habitat. Ann For Sci 60:297–305
Nilsen ET, Sharifi MR, Rundel PW, Jarrell WM, Virginia RA (1983) Diurnal and seasonal water relations of the desert phreatophyte Prosopis glandulosa (honey mesquite) in the Sonoran Desert of California. Ecology 64:1381–1393
Ohmann JL, Spies TA (1998) Regional gradient analysis and spatial pattern of woody plant communities of Oregon forests. Ecol Monogr 68:151–182
Oleskevich C, Shamoun SF, Punja ZK (1996) The biology of Canadian weeds. 105. Rubus strigosus Michx., Rubus parviflorus Nutt., and Rubus spectabilis Pursh. Can J Plant Sci 76:187–201
Pearcy RW, Schulze ED, Zimmermann R (1991) Measurement of transpiration and leaf conductance. In: Pearcy RW, Ehleringer JR, Mooney HA, Rundel PW (eds) Plant physiological ecology: field methods and instrumentation. Chapman and Hall, London, UK, pp 137–160
Pennycook SR (1998) Blackberry in New Zealand. Plant Prot Q 13:163–174
R Development Core Team (2008) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria
Rejmánek M, Richardson DM (1996) What attributes make some plant species more invasive? Ecology 77:1655–1661
Ringold PL, Magee TK, Peck DV (2008) Twelve invasive plant taxa in US western riparian ecosystems. J Am Benth Soc 27:949–966
Stafne ET, Clark JR, Rom CR (2001) Leaf gas exchange response of ‘Arapaho’ blackberry and six red raspberry cultivars to moderate and high temperatures. Hortscience 36:880–883
Stephenson NL (1990) Climatic control of vegetation distribution: the role of water balance. Am Nat 135:649–670
Tyree MT, Ewers FW (1991) Tansley Review No. 34. The hydraulic architecture of trees and other woody plants. New Phytol 119:345–360
Van den Honert TH (1948) Water transport in plants as a catenary process. Discuss Faraday Soc 3:146–153
Wagner W, Pruss A (1993) International equations for the saturation properties of ordinary water substance. Revised according to the international temperature scale of 1990. J Phys Chem Ref Data 22:783–787
Waring RH, Franklin JF (1979) Evergreen coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. Science 204:1380–1386
Wullschleger SD, Meinzer FC, Vertessy RA (1998) A review of whole-plant water use studies in trees. Tree Physiol 18:499–512
Zeiger E (1983) The biology of stomatal guard cells. Annu Rev Plant Physiol 34:441–474
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Invasive Plant Management of Missoula, Montana, USA. Equipment loans from S. Eppley, L. George, M. Sytsma, Decagon Devices, and LI-COR Biosciences helped make this research possible, particularly following a theft during the study. We thank S. Eppley, J. Maser, T. Rosenstiel, M. Sytsma, and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for permission to use natural areas in their jurisdictions, as well as N. Jenkins, W. Mahaffee, K. Norton, and D. Rosenthal for assistance in addressing methodological issues.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Caplan, J.S., Yeakley, J.A. Water relations advantages for invasive Rubus armeniacus over two native ruderal congeners. Plant Ecol 210, 169–179 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-010-9747-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-010-9747-4