Abstract
The decline of arable species characteristic of winter cereal fields has often been attributed to different factors related to agricultural intensification but most importantly to herbicide use. Herbicide phytotoxicity is most frequently assessed using short-term endpoints, primarily aboveground biomass. However, short-term sensitivity is usually not sufficient to detect actual effects because plants may or may not recover over time following sublethal herbicide exposures. Therefore, it is important to assess the long-term effects of herbicide applications. Annual species rely on renewable seed production to ensure their persistence; hence, assessment of herbicide sensitivity is more accurately estimated through effects on reproduction. Here we aim to assess the phytotoxicity of two commonly used herbicides: tribenuron and 2,4-D on eight plant species belonging to four families, each with one rare and one more common species. Specifically we examined the pattern of sensitivity using short-term and long-term endpoints (total aboveground biomass, total seed biomass and number of seeds) of these species; we determined the levels of and time to recovery in terms of stem length and fruit number, and assessed whether their rarity relates to their sensitivity to herbicide application. Our results suggest that although differences in herbicide sensitivity are not a direct cause of rarity for all species, it may be an important driver of declining arable plants.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Jane Allison, Nayana Dilini de Silva and Jessica Parsons for their assistance in the greenhouse work. This research was funded by the Spanish government through a fellowship to the first author plus a grant during the stage in Canada and by the Projects CGL2009-13497-C02-01 and CGL2012-39442 from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government, and by Environment Canada.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article. Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
10646_2015_1440_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Annex 1. The non-linear regression logistic models used to calculate IC50, IC25 and IC10. Supplementary material 1 (PDF 13 kb)
10646_2015_1440_MOESM2_ESM.pdf
Annex 2. Summary of the IC50s of the aboveground biomass (Table A2.1) and of the number and biomass of seeds (Table A2.2). Supplementary material 2 (PDF 185 kb)
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Annex 3. Summary of the IC10s of the aboveground biomass (Table A3.1) and of the number and biomass of seeds (Table A3.2). Supplementary material 3 (PDF 187 kb)
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Rotchés-Ribalta, R., Boutin, C., Blanco-Moreno, J.M. et al. Herbicide impact on the growth and reproduction of characteristic and rare arable weeds of winter cereal fields. Ecotoxicology 24, 991–1003 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1440-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1440-x