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Competition and soil fungi affect the physiological and growth traits of an alien and a native tree species

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Photosynthetica

Abstract

Competition plays an important role in the replacement of native species by alien plants. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate whether the competition pattern of alien Robinia pseudoacacia L. and native Quercus acutissima Carr. is affected by soil sterilization. Physiological traits, such as gas-exchange parameters and chlorophyll (Chl) content, and growth traits, such as the biomass accumulation of the two species, were examined in natural soil or in soil sterilized with benomyl. The results show that native Q. acutissima inhibits the growth of R. pseudoacacia in natural soil. When the two plants coexisted and competed under sterilization treatment, R. pseudoacacia was less inhibited by Q. acutissima and the competition of R. pseudoacacia decreased the growth of Q. acutissima in terms of biomass, Chl a, Chl b, total Chl, and Chl a/b. These results suggest that soil sterilization benefits the growth of R. pseudoacacia and changes the competition pattern by the changed soil biota. Soil sterilization increased the biomass of root nodules, which ultimately benefits the growth of R. pseudoacacia and root nodule bacteria may be important in the dispersal and invasion process of nitrogen-fixing alien plants such as R. pseudoacacia.

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Abbreviations

C a :

ambient CO2 concentration

C i :

intercellular CO2 concentration

Chl:

chlorophyll

E :

transpiration rate

g s :

stomatal conductance

L s :

stomatal limitation

NST:

nonsterilization treatment

P N :

net photosynthetic rate

ST:

sterilization treatment

WUE:

instantaneous water-use efficiency

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environment Research, Shandong University, No.27 Shandanan Road, Jinan, 250100, P.R. China

    H. Chen, R. Q. Wang, X. L. Ge, J. Zhang, N. Du & J. Liu

  2. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, P.R. China

    R. Q. Wang & W. Wang

  3. Institute of Ecology, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, D-12165, Germany

    J. Liu

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  1. H. Chen
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  2. R. Q. Wang
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  3. X. L. Ge
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  4. J. Zhang
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Correspondence to J. Liu.

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Acknowledgements: This research was financially supported by the “Major National Science and Technology Project” (Grant no. 2009ZX07210-009), the “National Natural Science Fund of China” (Grant no. 30970166), and the “Research Award for Outstanding Young Scientist in Shandong Province” (Grant no. 2006BS08008). The authors thank Enpapers Company for improving the quality of English used in the manuscript and to Dr. Edward C. Mignot of Shandong University for the linguistic advice on earlier versions of the paper. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their very helpful comments.

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Chen, H., Wang, R.Q., Ge, X.L. et al. Competition and soil fungi affect the physiological and growth traits of an alien and a native tree species. Photosynthetica 50, 77–85 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-012-0013-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-012-0013-y

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