9 research outputs found
Herbivore Preference for Native vs. Exotic Plants: Generalist Herbivores from Multiple Continents Prefer Exotic Plants That Are Evolutionarily Naïve
Enemy release and biotic resistance are competing, but not mutually exclusive,
hypotheses addressing the success or failure of non-native plants entering a new
region. Enemy release predicts that exotic plants become invasive by escaping
their co-adapted herbivores and by being unrecognized or unpalatable to native
herbivores that have not been selected to consume them. In contrast, biotic
resistance predicts that native generalist herbivores will suppress exotic
plants that will not have been selected to deter these herbivores. We tested
these hypotheses using five generalist herbivores from North or South America
and nine confamilial pairs of native and exotic aquatic plants. Four of five
herbivores showed 2.4–17.3 fold preferences for exotic over native plants.
Three species of South American apple snails (Pomacea sp.)
preferred North American over South American macrophytes, while a North American
crayfish Procambarus spiculifer preferred South American,
Asian, and Australian macrophytes over North American relatives. Apple snails
have their center of diversity in South America, but a single species
(Pomacea paludosa) occurs in North America. This species,
with a South American lineage but a North American distribution, did not
differentiate between South American and North American plants. Its preferences
correlated with preferences of its South American relatives rather than with
preferences of the North American crayfish, consistent with evolutionary inertia
due to its South American lineage. Tests of plant traits indicated that the
crayfish responded primarily to plant structure, the apple snails primarily to
plant chemistry, and that plant protein concentration played no detectable role.
Generalist herbivores preferred non-native plants, suggesting that intact guilds
of native, generalist herbivores may provide biotic resistance to plant
invasions. Past invasions may have been facilitated by removal of native
herbivores, introduction of non-native herbivores (which commonly prefer native
plants), or both
Production of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in the open ocean by zooplankton and the colonial cyanobacterium Trichodesmium spp.
Chromophoric (or colored) dissolved organic matter (CDOM) has been identified as a major determinant of the optical properties of oligotrophic oceans. The factors controlling distribution of CDOM far from the direct influence of land are not well known, as CDOM abundance and distribution does not directly correlate with phytoplankton productivity or biomass, or with dissolved organic matter (DOM) concentration. As part of a larger study of the dynamics of CDOM in the open ocean, we investigated direct release from plankton as a factor contributing to distribution patterns of CDOM. We measured the production of CDOM by zooplankton (copepods, euphausiids, amphipods, salps, polychaetes), protozoans (colonial radiolaria), and by the colonial cyanobacterium Trichodesmium spp. in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Groups of individual species of plankton were incubated and absorption spectra were obtained for their release products. CDOM was produced by all organisms examined, and absorption spectra varied by taxa, with major taxa exhibiting characteristic absorption peaks. Plankton-produced DOM is a source of labile carbon and thus facilitates microbial activity, and CDOM may also serve as photoprotection for near-surface-living organisms. Zooplankton likely play an important role in the CDOM cycle in the Sargasso Sea, directly through release/excretion of CDOM and indirectly by providing a labile substrate (excretia) for microbial-mediated production of CDOM