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Pervasive native plant has the potential to resist the invasion of exotic species: a trait-based comparison

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Abstract

Biotic resistance of pervasive native species to invasion may be an effective managing tool for exotic plants. The present study subjected the invasive aquatic plant in China, Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb., the exotic species with high dispersal along the Yangtze River Basin of sub-tropical China, Myriophyllum aquaticum (Vell.) Verdc., and the pervasive native species in China, Ludwigia peploides subsp. stipulacea (Ohwi) Raven, to different treatment combinations of sediment type and flooding condition in a mesocosm experiment. Morphological traits, biomass allocation, and physiological traits were employed to evaluate the plant performance of the three species. We found that L. peploides performed faster stolon elongation and roots recruitment than the invasive species. A. philoxeroides had a higher leaf nitrogen concentration, lower values in leaf C/N ratio and leaf construction cost, and higher plasticity in leaf nitrogen concentration, however, a weaker space exploitation compared to L. peploides. Moreover, L. peploides might had higher photosynthetic efficiency than M. aquaticum due to the higher chlorophyll concentration and leaf nitrogen concentration. We speculate that L. peploides has the potential to resist the invasion and to be used as biocontrol species for the management of exotic invasive species since this pervasive native species has greater space exploitation.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely appreciate the assistance from Jiangtao Hu throughout the experimental process.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31800299, 32271588), the general financial grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M622184), the Qingdao Agricultural University Doctoral Start-Up Fund (663/1121009, 663/1116023) and the National Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Qingdao Agricultural University (844, 849).

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Author notes

  1. Tong Wang and Yongfeng Zhu have contributed equally to the study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Landscape Architecture and Forestry, Qingdao Agricultural University, Changcheng Road No. 700, Qingdao, 266109, Shandong, China

    Tong Wang, Yongfeng Zhu, Zeyu Zhang, Xiaolong Chi, Xiaoyu Huang, Mengya Zhang, Xiao Guo, Mingyan Li & Haifang Li

  2. Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Wuhan University, Bayi Road No. 299, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Chunhua Liu & Dan Yu

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  1. Tong Wang
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Contributions

TW Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. YZ Funding acquisition, Investigation. ZZ and XC Investigation. XH and HL Funding acquisition. MZ and CL Writing—review & editing. DY Resources. XG Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing, Funding acquisition. ML Investigation, Writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Tong Wang or Haifang Li.

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Wang, T., Zhu, Y., Zhang, Z. et al. Pervasive native plant has the potential to resist the invasion of exotic species: a trait-based comparison. Hydrobiologia 850, 2015–2033 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05212-8

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