Invasibility of a mesic grassland depends on the time-scale of fluctuating resources
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Sally E. Koerner, Assistant Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: 1. Global change is increasing the frequency and magnitude of resource fluctuations (pulses) at multiple time-scales. According to the fluctuating resource availability hypothesis (FRAH), susceptibility of an ecosystem to invasion (i.e. invasibility) is expected to increase whenever resource supply exceeds that which is utilized by native communities. Thus, global change has the potential to increase invasibility around the world. 2. Here, we test the FRAH by adding seeds of a target invader grass species to a long-term climate change experiment manipulating precipitation pulse size in tallgrass prairie in Kansas, USA. 3. Our experimental work yielded three important findings. First, contrary to predictions of the FRAH, invasibility was reduced with short time-scale resource pulses (intra-annual time-scale). Secondly, we found evidence to suggest that at inter-annual time-scales, the FRAH is supported. Wet years resulted in an increase in the number of established seedlings as well as the number of seedlings that persisted to the end of the season. Finally, we found that invasibility was positively related to native community richness and the density of individuals in the community suggesting that native communities facilitate establishment of invader species. Perhaps more importantly, results from this 10-year invasion study also show that resource availability drives invasion and that the biotic filters of plant community structure and diversity are secondary. 4. Synthesis. Our findings suggest that intensification of precipitation regimes may enhance resistance to invasion at intra-annual time-scales, but will have opposing effects if precipitation regimes include more wet years.
Invasibility of a mesic grassland depends on the time-scale of fluctuating resources
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Journal of Ecology. 103(6):1538-1546. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.12479
- Language: English
- Date: 2015
- Keywords
- biotic resistance, dominance, ?uctuating resource hypothesis, interannual precipitation, intra-annual precipitation, invasion ecology, rainfall, resource pulse, tallgrass