Mechanisms driving diversity-productivity relationships differ between exotic and native communities and are affected by gastropod herbivory

Experimental indications of gardeners' anecdotes that snails interfere with invasive slugs

The invasive Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris) is an important pest species in agriculture and horticulture in Europe. In the last decades it has spread across the continent where it outcompetes native slug and snail species, thus posing a threat for biodiversity. A popular anecdote suggests to promote Roman snails (Helix pomatia) in gardens because they are able to control A. vulgaris. We examined a potential interrelationship between these two species using a mesocosm experiment with lettuce plants. ¹³C-¹⁵N stable isotope labelling of lettuce allowed us to investigate interactions between Helix and Arion on weight gain/loss and herbivory. Additionally, we wanted to know whether different watering regimes (daily vs. every 3rd day watering of weekly amount) and earthworms alter these interactions. Egg predation of Helix on Arion eggs was further tested in a food-choice experiment. Arion showed a five times higher herbivory per body mass than Helix in a single-species setting. However, in mesocosms containing both species percentage of herbivory per body mass was significantly lower than in Arion-only mesocosms, especially when watered every three days. Overall isotope uptake via eaten lettuce was unaffected by the presence of the other species. Only very little predation (three out of 200 eggs) of Helix on Arion eggs was observed. Our results provide no evidence for a clear dismissal or confirmation of the popular gardener’s anecdote that Helix snails have a negative effect on Arion abundance or herbivory.

A multidimensional framework for measuring biotic novelty: How novel is a community?

Anthropogenic changes in climate, land use, and disturbance regimes, as well as introductions of non-native species can lead to the transformation of many ecosystems. The resulting novel ecosystems are usually characterized by species assemblages that have not occurred previously in a given area. Quantifying the ecological novelty of communities (i.e., biotic novelty) would enhance the understanding of environmental change. However, quantification remains challenging since current novelty metrics, such as the number and/or proportion of non-native species in a community, fall short of considering both functional and evolutionary aspects of biotic novelty. Here, we propose the Biotic Novelty Index (BNI), an intuitive and flexible multidimensional measure that combines (a) functional differences between native and non-native introduced species with (b) temporal dynamics of species introductions. We show that the BNI is an additive partition of Rao's quadratic entropy, capturing the novel interaction component of the community's functional diversity. Simulations show that the index varies predictably with the relative amount of functional novelty added by recently arrived species, and they illustrate the need to provide an additional standardized version of the index. We present a detailed R code and two applications of the BNI by (a) measuring changes of biotic novelty of dry grassland plant communities along an urbanization gradient in a metropolitan region and (b) determining the biotic novelty of plant species assemblages at a national scale. The results illustrate the applicability of the index across scales and its flexibility in the use of data of different quality. Both case studies revealed strong connections between biotic novelty and increasing urbanization, a measure of abiotic novelty. We conclude that the BNI framework may help building a basis for better understanding the ecological and evolutionary consequences of global change.

Release from Above- and Belowground Insect Herbivory Mediates Invasion Dynamics and Impact of an Exotic Plant

The enemy-release hypothesis is one of the most popular but also most discussed hypotheses to explain invasion success. However, there is a lack of explicit, experimental tests of predictions of the enemy-release hypothesis (ERH), particularly regarding the effects of above- and belowground herbivory. Long-term studies investigating the relative effect of herbivores on invasive vs. native plant species within a community are still lacking. Here, we report on a long-term field experiment in an old-field community, invaded by Solidago canadensis s. l., with exclusion of above- and belowground insect herbivores. We monitored population dynamics of the invader and changes in the diversity and functioning of the plant community across eight years. Above- and belowground insects favoured the establishment of the invasive plant species and thereby increased biomass and decreased diversity of the plant community. Effects of invertebrate herbivores on population dynamics of S. canadensis appeared after six years and increased over time, suggesting that long-term studies are needed to understand invasion dynamics and consequences for plant community structure. We suggest that the release from co-evolved trophic linkages is of importance not only for the effect of invasive species on ecosystems, but also for the functioning of novel species assemblages arising from climate change.

Land cover drives large scale productivity-diversity relationships in Irish vascular plants

The impact of productivity on species diversity is often studied at small spatial scales and without taking additional environmental factors into account. Focusing on small spatial scales removes important regional scale effects, such as the role of land cover heterogeneity. Here, we use a regional spatial scale (10 km square) to establish the relationship between productivity and vascular plant species richness across the island of Ireland that takes into account variation in land cover. We used generalized additive mixed effects models to relate species richness, estimated from biological records, to plant productivity. Productivity was quantified by the satellite-derived enhanced vegetation index. The productivity-diversity relationship was fitted for three land cover types: pasture-dominated, heterogeneous, and non-pasture-dominated landscapes. We find that species richness decreases with increasing productivity, especially at higher productivity levels. This decreasing relationship appears to be driven by pasture-dominated areas. The relationship between species richness and heterogeneity in productivity (both spatial and temporal) varies with land cover. Our results suggest that the impact of pasture on species richness extends beyond field level. The effect of human modified landscapes, therefore, is important to consider when investigating classical ecological relationships, particularly at the wider landscape scale.

Negative relationship between diversity and productivity under plant invasion

The relationship between diversity and productivity of plant community under plant invasion has been not well known up to now. Here, we investigated the relationship between diversity and productivity under plant invasion and studied the response of species level plant mass to species richness in native and invaded communities. A field experiment from 2008 to 2013 and a pot experiment in 2014 were conducted to study the effects of plant invasion on the relationship between diversity and productivity and the response of species level plant mass to species richness in native and invaded communities. The community level biomass was negatively correlated to plant species richness in invaded communities while the same relationship was positive in native communities. The species level plant mass of individual species responded differently to overall plant species richness in the native and invaded communities, namely, most of the species’ plant mass increased in native communities, but decreased in invaded communities with increasing species richness. The complementarity or selection effects might dominate in native communities while competition effects might dominate in invaded communities. Accordingly, the negative relationship between diversity and productivity under plant invasion is highlighted in our experiments.

Interactions count: plant origin, herbivory and disturbance jointly explain seedling recruitment and community structure

Herbivory and disturbance are major drivers of biological invasions, but it is unclear how they interact to determine exotic vs. native seedling recruitment and what consequences arise for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Previous studies neglected the roles of different, potentially interacting, guilds of generalist herbivores such as rodents and gastropods. We therefore set up a full-factorial rodent exclusion x gastropod exclusion x disturbance x seed-addition experiment in a grassland community in Central Germany and measured early seedling recruitment, as well as species richness, species composition and aboveground biomass. Gastropod herbivory reduced the positive effect of disturbance on seedling recruitment, particularly for exotic species. Rodent herbivory had weak positive effects on seedling recruitment at undisturbed sites, irrespective of species origin. This effect was likely driven by their strong negative effect on productivity. Interactive effects between both herbivore guilds became only evident for species richness and composition. How many species established themselves depended on disturbance, but was independent of species origin. The fewer exotic species that established themselves increased productivity to a stronger extent compared to native species. Our study highlights that joint effects of disturbance, herbivory and species origin shape early recruitment, while they only weakly affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.