Tolerance of alien plant species to extreme events is comparable to that of their native relatives.

Julia Laube 1 2 , Kathrin Ziegler 1 , Tim H. Sparks 2 3 4 1 , Nicole Estrella 1 2 & Annette Menzel 1 2

Affiliations

  1. Chair of Ecoclimatology, Technische Universität München, Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz- Platz 2, 85354 Freising, Germany
  2. Institute for Advanced Study, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstrasse 2a, 85748 Garching, Germany
  3. Institute of Zoology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 71C, 60-625 Poznań, Poland
  4. Sigma, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, United Kingdom

Published: 29 March 2015


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Abstract

In addition to increases in temperature and CO2, other features of climate change, such as extreme events and short-term variations in climate are thought to be important. Some evidence indicates that invasive plant species might benefit from climate change via these features. However, apart from theory-based predictions, knowledge of the tolerance of invasive species to short-term climatic stress is very limited. We investigated whether three naturalized alien plant species in central Europe, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Hieracium aurantiacum and Lysimachia punctata perform better under stressful conditions than comparable native species. A greenhouse experiment with a fixed stress sequence of frost, drought and water logging was set up. We applied this stress treatment to two life history stages (seedling and adult plants), plants grown in monoculture (mild intraspecific competition) and in a highly competitive setting with intra- and interspecific competition. Whilst small differences in plant responses were detected the alien species overall were not more tolerant to stress. The responses of alien and native congeners/confamilials to stress in all treatments (monoculture, competition, adult, seedling) were similar, which indicates that stress thresholds are phylogenetically conserved. All species were more vulnerable to stress at the seedling stage and when subject to competition. Our data indicates that results obtained from experiments using only monocultures and one development stage are not appropriate for drawing generalizations about lethal thresholds. Moreover, rather abrupt species-specific thresholds exist, which indicates that a prediction of species responses based on just two stress levels, as is the case in most studies, is not sufficient.

Keywords

alien, climate change, climatic stress, drought, precipitation, frost, greenhouse experiment, life history stage, competition

How to cite

Laube J., Ziegler K., Sparks T. H., Estrella N. & Menzel A. (2015) Tolerance of alien plant species to extreme events is comparable to that of their native relatives. – Preslia 87: 3153