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Wild cherries invading natural grasslands: unraveling colonization history from population structure and spatial patterns

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Abstract

Invasive success of many fleshy-fruited plants has been linked to opportunistic interactions with generalist frugivores. Prunus mahaleb is a small tree, producing large quantities of little, bright black, sugary drupes that are consumed by vertebrates. It is native to the Mediterranean region but has become invasive in several countries. This study was carried out at a nature reserve including remnant mountain grasslands of high conservation value in the southern Argentine Pampas. Our aim is to reconstruct the colonization history of invading populations proposing a generalized model to describe the invasion process: colonization events result in the establishment of a founder tree followed by a lag phase until it reaches massive seed production and enables an increase in local recruitment and plant density. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed population age structures and contrasted them with those predicted using a Leslie matrix growth model. We found that matrix model predictions fit well to actual age structures. Our results reveal the existence of an 8–18-year lag period between the establishment of the founder tree and local effective recruitment. The end of this lag coincides with an abrupt increase in individual fruit production that may have a strong effect on bird attraction and successful seed dispersal. This lag phase represents an opportunity for preventing further spread of P. mahaleb. Early detection and rapid eradication of new invasion focuses should be targeted as a principal aim of an effective control strategy.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina), CIC (Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina. We are grateful to Ernesto Tornquist Provincial Park rangers who helped in field work and two anonymous referees that provided helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

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  1. GEKKO, Grupo de Estudios en Conservación y Manejo, Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional del Sur, San Juan 670, 8000, Bahía Blanca, Argentina

    Martín Raúl Amodeo & Sergio Martín Zalba

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  1. Martín Raúl Amodeo
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  2. Sergio Martín Zalba
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Correspondence to Martín Raúl Amodeo.

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Amodeo, M.R., Zalba, S.M. Wild cherries invading natural grasslands: unraveling colonization history from population structure and spatial patterns. Plant Ecol 214, 1299–1307 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-013-0252-4

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