Abstract
While earlier studies on the process of invasion often focused on single factors or on the general explanation of ‘disturbance,’ recent work has attempted to move towards a more mechanistic understanding of the factors that promote plant community invasion. Manipulative experiments provide a means for discerning causal relationships and interactive effects of environmental factors in promoting invasion; such experiments have been conducted in a number of grassland and shrub ecosystems. This study extends multifactor manipulative experiments into forest communities to compare factors influencing early seedling establishment for native and invasive woody plants. In Long Island, NY, invasion patterns are correlated with forest community type (pine barrens or hardwood), light availability, and soil N and Ca. We conducted manipulative field experiments in two different years to determine the relative importance and interaction of experimental gaps and N and Ca addition in pine barrens and hardwood forests in promoting invasion. We used seedlings of seven common native and invasive species in the first experiment, and 16 native and invasive species paired phylogenetically in the second experiment. Light had the strongest effect on plant growth; all plants grew more in gaps. We found no difference in the average growth rates of native and invasive species. Invasives responded more to high resources than did natives, with highest relative growth rates in gaps in the more fertile soils of the hardwood forests. Opportunities for invasion may differ from year to year, with differential success of invaders only in some years and under some environmental conditions. Clearly, to understand the complex interactions between resources and invasion in forests will require many manipulative experiments across a range of environments and using suites of invasive and native species.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aber JD, Nadelhoffer KJ, Steudler P, Melillo JM (1989) Nitrogen saturation in northern forest ecosystems. Bioscience 39:378–386
Aber JD, McDowell WH, Nadelhoffer K, Magill A, Berntson G, Kamakea M, McNulty S, Currie W, Rustad L, Fernandez I (1998) Nitrogen saturation in temperate forest ecosystems. Bioscience 48:921–934
Ashton IW, Hyatt LA, Howe KM, Gurevitch J, Lerdau M (2005) Invasive species accelerate decomposition and litter nitrogen loss in mixed deciduous forest. Ecol Appl 15:1263–1272
Burke MJW, Grime JP (1996) An experimental study of plant community invasibility. Ecology 77:776–790
Chambers JC, Roundy BA, Blank RR, Meyer SE, Whittaker A (2007) What makes Great Basin sagebrush ecosystems invasible by Bromus tectorum? Ecol Monogr 77:117–145
Crawley MJ (1987) What makes a community invasible? In: Gray AJ, Crawley MJ, Edwards PJ (eds) Colonization, succession and stability. Blackwell Scientific, London, pp 429–453
Daehler CC (2003) Performance comparisons of co-occurring native and alien invasive plants: implications for conservation and restoration. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 34:183–211
Davis MA, Grime JP, Thompson K (2000) Fluctuating resources in plant communities: a general theory of invasibility. J Ecol 88:528–534
Davis MA, Bier L, Bushelle E (2005) Non-indigenous grasses impede woody succession. Plant Ecol 178:249–264
Dukes JS, Mooney HA (1999) Does global change increase the success of biological invaders? TREE 14:135–139
Elton CS (1958) The ecology of invasions by animals and plants. Methuen, London
Foster BL, Dickson TL (2004) Grassland diversity and productivity: the interplay of resource availability and propagule pools. Ecology 85:1541–1547
Gilliam FS (2006) Response of the herbaceous layer of forest ecosystems to excess nitrogen deposition. J Ecol 94:1176–1191
Grotkopp E, Rejmanek M, Rost RL (2002) Toward a causal explanation of plant invasiveness: seedling growth and life history strategies of 29 pine (Pinus) species. Am Nat 159:396–419
Howard TG, Gurevitch J, Hyatt L, Carreiro M, Lerdau M (2004) Forest invasibility in communities in southeastern New York. Biol Invasions 6:393–410
Johnstone IM (1986) Plant invasion windows—a time-based classification of invasion potential. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 61:369–394
Knops JMH, Tilman D, Haddad NM, Naeem S, Mitchell CE, Haarstad J, Ritchie ME, Howe KM, Reich PB, Siemann E, Groth J (1999) Effects of plant species richness on invasion dynamics, disease outbreaks, insect abundances and diversity. Ecol Lett 2:286–293
Lawrence GB, David MB, Lovett GM, Murdoch PS, Burns DA, Stoddard JL, Baldigo BP, Porter JH, Thompson AW (1999) Soil calcium status and the response of stream chemistry to changing acidic deposition rates. Ecol Appl 9:1059–1072
Leger EA, Howe KM, Gurevitch J, Woo E, Hickman JE, Ashton IW, Lerdau M (2007) The interaction between soil nutrients and leaf loss during early establishment in plant invasion. For Sci 53(6):701–709
Levine JM, D’Antonio CM (1999) Elton revisited: a review of evidence linking diversity and invasibility. Oikos 87:15–26
Likens GE (1998) The biogeochemistry of calcium at Hubbard Brook. Biogeochemistry 41:89–173
Lodge DM (1993) Biological invasions: lessons for ecology. TREE 8:133–137
Malmstrom CM, Stoner CJ, Brandenburg S, Newton LA (2006) Virus infection and grazing exert counteracting influences on survivorship of native bunchgrass seedlings competing with invasive exotics. J Ecol 94:264–275
Naeem S, Knops JMH, Tilman D, Howe KM, Kennedy T, Gale S (2000) Plant diversity increases resistance to invasion in the absence of covarying extrinsic factors. Oikos 91:97–108
Orians GH (1986) Site characteristic favoring invasions. Ecol Stud 58:133
Prober SM, Thiele KR, Lunt ID, Koen TB (2005) Restoring ecological function in temperate grassy woodlands: manipulating soil nutrients, exotic annuals and native perennial grasses through carbon supplements and spring burns. J Appl Ecol 42:1073–1085
Rejmanek M, Richardson DM (1996) What attributes make some plant species more invasive? Ecology 77:1655–1661
Sanford NL, Harrington RA, Fownes JH (2003) Survival and growth of native and alien woody seedlings in open and understory environments. For Ecol Manage 183:377–385
Scherer-Lorenzen M, Elend A, Nöllert S, Schulze E-D (2000) Plant invasions in Germany: general aspects and impacts of nitrogen deposition. In: Mooney HA, Hobbs RJ (eds) Invasive species in a changing world. Island, Washington, DC, pp 351–368
Stohlgren TJ, Binkley D, Chong GW, Kalkhan MA, Schell LD, Bull KA, Otsuki Y, Newman G, Bashkin M, Son Y (1999) Exotic plant species invade hot spots of native plant diversity. Ecol Monogr 69:25–46
Vitousek PM, Aber JD, Howarth RW, Likens GE, Matson PA, Schindler DW, Schlesinger WH, Tilman GD (1997) Human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences. Ecol Appl 7:737–750
Von Holle B (2005) Biotic resistance to invader establishment of a southern Appalachian plant community is determined by environmental conditions. J Ecol 93:16–26
Acknowledgements
Funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency Star Grant number EPA828900010 and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an Upton Preserve Research Grant is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the University of Delhi and Professor Inderjit for sponsoring a symposium in Delhi, India which stimulated the synthesis needed to complete this paper. We appreciate the hard work of Laura Hyatt, Kerry Brown, Andrea Green, Jonathan Hickman, Susan Natali, Sarah Uihlein, Leslie Gonzalez, Annie Hauff, Tag Engstrom, Dustin Brisson, J. Matthew Hoch, Windsor Aguirre, Dan Stoebel, Bengt Allen, Catherine McGlynn, Christopher Noto, Erin Cooper, Paul Bourdeau, Wei Fang, and Mike Axelrod in the greenhouse, laboratory, and field. We thank the Nature Conservancy, Suffolk County Parks Department, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for permission and access to field sites. Comments of an anonymous reviewer substantially improved the clarity of the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Appendix A
(DOC 29 kb)
Appendix B
(CSV 165 kb)
Appendix C
{DOC 35 kb}
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gurevitch, J., Howard, T.G., Ashton, I.W. et al. Effects of experimental manipulation of light and nutrients on establishment of seedlings of native and invasive woody species in Long Island, NY forests. Biol Invasions 10, 821–831 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-008-9241-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-008-9241-2