Limits to the niche and range margins of alien species

Geographic selection bias of occurrence data influences transferability of invasive Hydrilla verticillata distribution models

Due to socioeconomic differences, the accuracy and extent of reporting on the occurrence of native species differs among countries, which can impact the performance of species distribution models. We assessed the importance of geographical biases in occurrence data on model performance using Hydrilla verticillata as a case study. We used Maxent to predict potential North American distribution of the aquatic invasive macrophyte based upon training data from its native range. We produced a model using all available native range occurrence data, then explored the change in model performance produced by omitting subsets of training data based on political boundaries. We also compared those results with models trained on data from which a random sample of occurrence data was omitted from across the native range. Although most models accurately predicted the occurrence of H. verticillata in North America (AUC > 0.7600), data omissions influenced model predictions. Omitting data based on political boundaries resulted in larger shifts in model accuracy than omitting randomly selected occurrence data. For well-documented species like H. verticillata, missing records from single countries or ecoregions may minimally influence model predictions, but for species with fewer documented occurrences or poorly understood ranges, geographic biases could misguide predictions. Regardless of focal species, we recommend that future species distribution modeling efforts begin with a reflection on potential spatial biases of available occurrence data. Improved biodiversity surveillance and reporting will provide benefit not only in invaded ranges but also within under-reported and unexplored native ranges.

Evolution under changing climates: climatic niche stasis despite rapid evolution in a non-native plant

A topic of great current interest is the capacity of populations to adapt genetically to rapidly changing climates, for example by evolving the timing of life-history events, but this is challenging to address experimentally. I use a plant invasion as a model system to tackle this question by combining molecular markers, a common garden experiment and climatic niche modelling. This approach reveals that non-native Lactuca serriola originates primarily from Europe, a climatic subset of its native range, with low rates of admixture from Asia. It has rapidly refilled its climatic niche in the new range, associated with the evolution of flowering phenology to produce clines along climate gradients that mirror those across the native range. Consequently, some non-native plants have evolved development times and grow under climates more extreme than those found in Europe, but not among populations from the native range as a whole. This suggests that many plant populations can adapt rapidly to changed climatic conditions that are already within the climatic niche space occupied by the species elsewhere in its range, but that evolution to conditions outside of this range is more difficult. These findings can also help to explain the prevalence of niche conservatism among non-native species.

Thermal niches are more conserved at cold than warm limits in arctic-alpine plant species

AIM

Understanding the stability of realized niches is crucial for predicting the responses of species to climate change. One approach is to evaluate the niche differences of populations of the same species that occupy regions that are geographically disconnected. Here, we assess niche conservatism along thermal gradients for 26 plant species with a disjunct distribution between the Alps and the Arctic.

LOCATION

European Alps and Norwegian Finnmark.

METHODS

We collected a comprehensive dataset of 26 arctic-alpine plant occurrences in two regions. We assessed niche conservatism through a multispecies comparison and analysed species rankings at cold and warm thermal limits along two distinct gradients corresponding to (1) air temperatures at 2 m above ground level and (2) elevation distances to the tree line (TLD) for the two regions. We assessed whether observed relationships were close to those predicted under thermal limit conservatism.

RESULTS

We found a weak similarity in species ranking at the warm thermal limits. The range of warm thermal limits for the 26 species was much larger in the Alps than in Finnmark. We found a stronger similarity in species ranking and correspondence at the cold thermal limit along the gradients of 2-m temperature and TLD. Yet along the 2-m temperature gradient the cold thermal limits of species in the Alps were lower on average than those in Finnmark.

MAIN CONCLUSION

We found low conservatism of the warm thermal limits but a stronger conservatism of the cold thermal limits. We suggest that biotic interactions at the warm thermal limit are likely to modulate species responses more strongly than at the cold limit. The differing biotic context between the two regions is probably responsible for the observed differences in realized niches.

Invasion success in a marginal habitat: an experimental test of competitive ability and drought tolerance in Chromolaena odorata

Climatic niche models based on native-range climatic data accurately predict invasive-range distributions in the majority of species. However, these models often do not account for ecological and evolutionary processes, which limit the ability to predict future range expansion. This might be particularly problematic in the case of invaders that occupy environments that would be considered marginal relative to the climatic niche in the native range of the species. Here, we assess the potential for future range expansion in the shrub Chromolaena odorata that is currently invading mesic savannas (>650 mm MAP) in South Africa that are colder and drier than most habitats in its native range. In a greenhouse experiment we tested whether its current distribution in South Africa can be explained by increased competitive ability and/or differentiation in drought tolerance relative to the native population. We compared aboveground biomass, biomass allocation, water use efficiency and relative yields of native and invasive C. odorata and the resident grass Panicum maximum in wet and dry conditions. Surprisingly, we found little differentiation between ranges. Invasive C. odorata showed no increased competitive ability or superior drought tolerance compared to native C. odorata. Moreover we found that P. maximum was a better competitor than either native or invasive C. odorata. These results imply that C. odorata is unlikely to expand its future range towards more extreme, drier, habitats beyond the limits of its current climatic niche and that the species’ invasiveness most likely depends on superior light interception when temporarily released from competition by disturbance. Our study highlights the fact that species can successfully invade habitats that are at the extreme end of their ranges and thereby contributes towards a better understanding of range expansion during species invasions.

Improving transferability of introduced species' distribution models: new tools to forecast the spread of a highly invasive seaweed

The utility of species distribution models for applications in invasion and global change biology is critically dependent on their transferability between regions or points in time, respectively. We introduce two methods that aim to improve the transferability of presence-only models: density-based occurrence thinning and performance-based predictor selection. We evaluate the effect of these methods along with the impact of the choice of model complexity and geographic background on the transferability of a species distribution model between geographic regions. Our multifactorial experiment focuses on the notorious invasive seaweed Caulerpa cylindracea (previously Caulerpa racemosa var. cylindracea) and uses Maxent, a commonly used presence-only modeling technique. We show that model transferability is markedly improved by appropriate predictor selection, with occurrence thinning, model complexity and background choice having relatively minor effects. The data shows that, if available, occurrence records from the native and invaded regions should be combined as this leads to models with high predictive power while reducing the sensitivity to choices made in the modeling process. The inferred distribution model of Caulerpa cylindracea shows the potential for this species to further spread along the coasts of Western Europe, western Africa and the south coast of Australia.

Genetically based differentiation in growth of multiple non-native plant species along a steep environmental gradient

A non-native plant species spreading along an environmental gradient may need to adjust its growth to the prevailing conditions that it encounters by a combination of phenotypic plasticity and genetic adaptation. There have been several studies of how non-native species respond to changing environmental conditions along latitudinal gradients, but much less is known about elevational gradients. We conducted a climate chamber experiment to investigate plastic and genetically based growth responses of 13 herbaceous non-native plants along an elevational gradient from 100 to 2,000 m a.s.l. in Tenerife. Conditions in the field ranged from high anthropogenic disturbance but generally favourable temperatures for plant growth in the lower half of the gradient, to low disturbance but much cooler conditions in the upper half. We collected seed from low, mid and high elevations and grew them in climate chambers under the characteristic temperatures at these three elevations. Growth of all species was reduced under lower temperatures along both halves of the gradient. We found consistent genetically based differences in growth over the upper elevational gradient, with plants from high-elevation sites growing more slowly than those from mid-elevation ones, while the pattern in the lower part of the gradient was more mixed. Our data suggest that many non-native plants might respond to climate along elevational gradients by genetically based changes in key traits, especially at higher elevations where low temperatures probably impose a stronger selection pressure. At lower elevations, where anthropogenic influences are greater, higher gene flow and frequent disturbance might favour genotypes with broad ecological amplitudes. Thus the importance of evolutionary processes for invasion success is likely to be context-dependent.

Population genetic analysis of Bromus tectorum (Poaceae) indicates recent range expansion may be facilitated by specialist genotypes

PREMISE OF THE STUDY

The mechanisms for range expansion in invasive species depend on how genetic variation is structured in the introduced range. This study examined neutral genetic variation in the invasive annual grass Bromus tectorum in the Intermountain Western United States. Patterns of microsatellite (SSR) genotype distribution in this highly inbreeding species were used to make inferences about the roles of adaptively significant genetic variation, broadly adapted generalist genotypes, and facultative outcrossing in the recent range expansion of B. tectorum in this region.

METHODS

We sampled 20 individuals from each of 96 B. tectorum populations from historically and recently invaded habitats throughout the region and used four polymorphic SSR markers to characterize each individual.

KEY RESULTS

We detected 131 four-locus SSR genotypes; however, the 14 most common genotypes collectively accounted for 79.2% of the individuals. Common SSR genotypes were not randomly distributed among habitats. Instead, characteristic genotypes sorted into specific recently invaded habitats, including xeric warm and salt desert as well as mesic high-elevation habitats. Other SSR genotypes were common across a range of historically invaded habitats. We observed very few heterozygous individuals (0.58%).

CONCLUSIONS

Broadly adapted, generalist genotypes appear to dominate historically invaded environments, while recently invaded salt and warm desert habitats are dominated by distinctive SSR genotypes that contain novel alleles. These specialist genotypes are not likely to have resulted from recombination; they probably represent more recent introductions from unknown source populations. We found little evidence that outcrossing plays a role in range expansion.

The more the better? The role of polyploidy in facilitating plant invasions

BACKGROUND

Biological invasions are a major ecological and socio-economic problem in many parts of the world. Despite an explosion of research in recent decades, much remains to be understood about why some species become invasive whereas others do not. Recently, polyploidy (whole genome duplication) has been proposed as an important determinant of invasiveness in plants. Genome duplication has played a major role in plant evolution and can drastically alter a plant's genetic make-up, morphology, physiology and ecology within only one or a few generations. This may allow some polyploids to succeed in strongly fluctuating environments and/or effectively colonize new habitats and, thus, increase their potential to be invasive.

SCOPE

We synthesize current knowledge on the importance of polyploidy for the invasion (i.e. spread) of introduced plants. We first aim to elucidate general mechanisms that are involved in the success of polyploid plants and translate this to that of plant invaders. Secondly, we provide an overview of ploidal levels in selected invasive alien plants and explain how ploidy might have contributed to their success.

CONCLUSIONS

Polyploidy can be an important factor in species invasion success through a combination of (1) 'pre-adaptation', whereby polyploid lineages are predisposed to conditions in the new range and, therefore, have higher survival rates and fitness in the earliest establishment phase; and (2) the possibility for subsequent adaptation due to a larger genetic diversity that may assist the 'evolution of invasiveness'. Alternatively, polyploidization may play an important role by (3) restoring sexual reproduction following hybridization or, conversely, (4) asexual reproduction in the absence of suitable mates. We, therefore, encourage invasion biologists to incorporate assessments of ploidy in their studies of invasive alien species.

Invasive plants and enemy release: evolution of trait means and trait correlations in Ulex europaeus

Several hypotheses that attempt to explain invasive processes are based on the fact that plants have been introduced without their natural enemies. Among them, the EICA (Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability) hypothesis is the most influential. It states that, due to enemy release, exotic plants evolve a shift in resource allocation from defence to reproduction or growth. In the native range of the invasive species Ulex europaeus, traits involved in reproduction and growth have been shown to be highly variable and genetically correlated. Thus, in order to explore the joint evolution of life history traits and susceptibility to seed predation in this species, we investigated changes in both trait means and trait correlations. To do so, we compared plants from native and invaded regions grown in a common garden. According to the expectations of the EICA hypothesis, we observed an increase in seedling height. However, there was little change in other trait means. By contrast, correlations exhibited a clear pattern: the correlations between life history traits and infestation rate by seed predators were always weaker in the invaded range than in the native range. In U. europaeus, the role of enemy release in shaping life history traits thus appeared to imply trait correlations rather than trait means. In the invaded regions studied, the correlations involving infestation rates and key life history traits such as flowering phenology, growth and pod density were reduced, enabling more independent evolution of these key traits and potentially facilitating local adaptation to a wide range of environments. These results led us to hypothesise that a relaxation of genetic correlations may be implied in the expansion of invasive species.

Assembly of nonnative floras along elevational gradients explained by directional ecological filtering

Nonnative species richness typically declines along environmental gradients such as elevation. It is usually assumed that this is because few invaders possess the necessary adaptations to succeed under extreme environmental conditions. Here, we show that nonnative plants reaching high elevations around the world are not highly specialized stress tolerators but species with broad climatic tolerances capable of growing across a wide elevational range. These results contrast with patterns for native species, and they can be explained by the unidirectional expansion of nonnative species from anthropogenic sources at low elevations and the progressive dropping out of species with narrow elevational amplitudes--a process that we call directional ecological filtering. Independent data confirm that climatic generalists have succeeded in colonizing the more extreme environments at higher elevations. These results suggest that invasion resistance is not conferred by extreme conditions at a particular site but determined by pathways of introduction of nonnative species. In the future, increased direct introduction of nonnative species with specialized ecophysiological adaptations to mountain environments could increase the risk of invasion. As well as providing a general explanation for gradients of nonnative species richness and the importance of traits such as phenotypic plasticity for many invasive species, the concept of directional ecological filtering is useful for understanding the initial assembly of some native floras at high elevations and latitudes.