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Salinity driven interactions between plant growth and a biological control agent

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Abstract

Abiotic conditions can influence the effect that herbivores have on plant growth. Such biotic and abiotic interactions are of special interest in plant biological control programs because the goal of herbivore suppression of the target weed may not be reached in some abiotic settings. Additionally, target invasive plants typically occur across diverse landscapes raising the possibility that local adaptation to site-specific conditions leads to phenotypic variation that can affect herbivore responses. Here, we used Tamarix, an invasive plant, and its associated biological control agent, Diorhabda carinulata, to investigate how local variation in soil salinity and host plant origin influence interactions between the two taxa. To test if Tamarix was adapted to local conditions, we collected plants from sites with either low or high groundwater salinity, asexually propagated them through multiple generations, and then treated them with their home or reciprocal salinity levels. We found that plants accumulated the most biomass when grown at the salinities of their origin site. The biological control agent, D. carinulata preferred plants grown at source site salinity when given a choice against plants grown in the reciprocal salinity treatment. Although plants compensated for herbivory by regrowing foliage over three defoliation events and maintained similar leaf biomass through regrowth, they ultimately had a reduced basal area and 62% lower root biomass compared to the controls. Thus, herbivory caused a shift in plant allocation of resources from overall growth to compensation, reducing root and stem investment. Overall, D. carinulata caused a significantly greater reduction in total biomass in the high salinity plants than the low salinity ones when grown at their source salinity (averages of 63% and 32% respectively). Thus, the Tamarix biological control program may experience its greatest efficacy in high salinity areas where the impact of the agent is the greatest, likely due to increased water stress and reduced resources to enable regrowth.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the numerous undergrads from the Riparian InVasion Research Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara for assistance with data collection and experiment execution. Notably, Catherine Patton for her assistance in the beetle preference trials and Eric Pelligrini for his help with the salinity trials. We thank the UCSB Tuesday night plant ecology and the members of the D’Antonio and Dudley labs for their helpful discussion on the manuscript. We would also like to thank our funding sources; the University of California, Santa Barbara Wooster Family Award to RWL, a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Grant # 2015-67013-12138) awarded to KRH, TLD and CMD, and a grant awarded to TLD from California Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Pesticide Regulation. (Grant # 16-PML-G001).

Funding

Funding was provided by the University California Santa Barbara Wooster Family Award to RWL, a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Grant # 2015–67013-12138) awarded to KRH, TLD and CMD, and a grant awarded to TLD from California Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Pesticide Regulation. (Grant # 16-PML-G001).

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  1. Randall W. Long

    Present address: Holden Arboretum, 9550 Sperry Rd, Kirtland, OH, 44094, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California-Santa Barbara, Bldg 520, RM 4001, Fl 4L, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Randall W. Long & Carla M. D’Antonio

  2. Marine Science Institute, University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Tom L. Dudley & Adam M. Lambert

  3. Department of Research, Conservation and Collections, Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 N Galvin Pkwy, Phoenix, AZ, 85008, USA

    Kevin R. Hultine

  4. Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Adam M. Lambert

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  1. Randall W. Long
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Contributions

RWL designed and implemented the experiment, RWL analyzed the data with suggestions from AML, RWL wrote the manuscript and CMD, TLD, KRH, and AML all provided substantial edits.

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Correspondence to Randall W. Long.

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Long, R.W., D’Antonio, C.M., Dudley, T.L. et al. Salinity driven interactions between plant growth and a biological control agent. Biol Invasions 23, 3161–3173 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-021-02556-x

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