HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

(American Journal of Botany. 2008;95:681-687.) doi: 10.3732/ajb.2007408 © 2008 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

What's this?

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Drenovsky, R. E. Articles by James, J. J. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Drenovsky, R. E. Articles by James, J. J. Agricola Articles by Drenovsky, R. E. Articles by James, J. J. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Variation in resource acquisition and utilization traits between native and invasive perennial forbs¹

² Biology Department, John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio 44118-4581 USA ³ USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center 67826-A Hwy 205, Burns, Oregon 97720 USA

ABSTRACT

Understanding the functional traits that allow invasives to outperform natives is a necessary first step in improving our ability to predict and manage the spread of invaders. In nutrient-limited systems, plant competitive ability is expected to be closely tied to the ability of a plant to exploit nutrient-rich microsites and use these captured nutrients efficiently. The broad objective of this work was to compare the ability of native and invasive perennial forbs to acquire and use nutrients from nutrient-rich microsites. We evaluated morphological and physiological responses among four native and four invasive species exposed to heterogeneous (patch) or homogeneous (control) nutrient distribution. Invasives, on average, allocated more biomass to roots and allocated proportionately more root length to nutrient-rich microsites than did natives. Invasives also had higher leaf N, photosynthetic rates, and photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency than natives, regardless of treatment. While these results suggest multiple traits may contribute to the success of invasive forbs in low-nutrient environments, we also observed large variation in these traits among native forbs. These observations support the idea that functional trait variation in the plant community may be a better predictor of invasion resistance than the functional group composition of the plant community.

Key Words: invasive species • functional traits • root foraging • spotted knapweed • yarrow

Received for publication 12 December 2007. Accepted for publication 7 April 2008.

FOOTNOTES

¹ The authors thank C. Sheil and N. Pietrasiak for help installing the experiment and C. Sheil for illustrating Fig. 1. Comments from R. B. Pratt, J. L. Funk, and an anonymous reviewer significantly improved the manuscript. A Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society (R.E.D.) and a Summer Research Fellowship from the Huntington-Codrington Foundation (C.E.M.) helped support this work.

⁴ Author for correspondence (e-mail: rdrenovsky{at}jcu.edu)

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. Zhang and E. George Root proliferation of Norway spruce and Scots pine in response to local magnesium supply in soil Tree Physiol, February 1, 2009; 29(2): 199 - 206. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]