Abstract
Reproductive traits are tightly linked to plant fitness and may therefore be mechanisms driving biological invasions, including the greater success of more phylogenetically novel introduced species in some systems. We present a phylogenetic comparative analysis of “Baker’s law’’, that introduced plants with the ability to reproduce autogamous or asexually may be better able to establish on introduction. We gathered data from both published and unpublished sources on pollen limitation of 141 species, including 26 introduced species and 115 native species. Our analysis compared differences in the proportion of autonomous autogamy, asexual reproduction, and pollen limitation among native, introduced noninvasive, and introduced invasive plant species, and included the phylogenetic novelty of the introduced species to the native species in that community. Introduced species were more likely to be autogamous than native species, consistent with Baker’s law. On the other hand, introduced species were less likely to have the ability to reproduce asexually. Further, among species with no autonomous autogamy, pollen limitation was greater for introduced compared to native species. Such a result is consistent with the idea that plants entering a new continent receive lower quality or quantity of services from resident pollinators than species native to that continent. Finally, more phylogenetically novel invasive species had lower pollen limitation than less novel invasive species, potentially because they experience less competition for pollinators. This is the first evidence that enhanced pollination may be one mechanism driving the greater invasiveness of phylogenetically novel introduced species observed in some systems.
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Acknowledgments
We thank LA Shemyakina, KI Powell, AC Blair and LM Wolfe for sharing unpublished pollen limitation data with us. J. Walker provided access to a population of Lonicera flava. T. Mohrman provided significant help with species location and identification. I.M. Parker suggested that more novel species could be more likely to be intentionally introduced species, with larger flowers. K.S. Moriuchi, M. Fishbein, S.A. Price and S.Y. Strauss provided valuable comments on the manuscript. This project was funded by the National Research Initiative of the United States Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, grant number #05–2290, Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and the American Association of University Women. Experiments here comply with the laws and regulations in Missouri, USA.
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Communicated by Alice Winn.
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Burns, J.H., Ashman, TL., Steets, J.A. et al. A phylogenetically controlled analysis of the roles of reproductive traits in plant invasions. Oecologia 166, 1009–1017 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-1929-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-1929-9