Strong Response of an Invasive Plant Species (Centaurea solstitialis L.) to Global Environmental Changes.

Global environmental changes are altering interactions among plant species, sometimes favoring invasive species. Here, we examine how a suite of five environmental factors, singly and in combination, can affect the success of a highly invasive plant. We introduced Centaurea solstitialis L. (yellow starthistle), which is considered by many to be California’s most troublesome wildland weed, to grassland plots in the San Francisco Bay Area. These plots experienced ambient or elevated levels of warming, atmospheric CO2, precipitation, and nitrate deposition, and an accidental fire in the previous year created an additional treatment. Centaurea grew more than six times larger in response to elevated CO2, and, outside of the burned area, grew more than three times larger in response to nitrate deposition. In contrast, resident plants in the community responded less strongly (or did not respond) to these treatments. Interactive effects among treatments were rarely significant. Results from a parallel mesocosm experiment, while less dramatic, supported the pattern of results observed in the field. Taken together, our results suggest that ongoing environmental changes may dramatically increase Centaurea’s prevalence in western North America

Integrating Teaching and Research in Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Education

A course recently designed and implemented at Stanford University applies practical suggestions for creating research-based undergraduate courses that benefit both teaching and research

Do trade‐offs govern plant species’ responses to different global change treatments?

Plants are subject to trade-offs among growth strategies such that adaptations for optimal growth in one condition can preclude optimal growth in another. Thus, we predicted that a plant species that responds positively to one global change treatment would be less likely than average to respond positively to another treatment, particularly for pairs of treatments that favor distinct traits. We examined plant species’ abundances in 39 global change experiments manipulating two or more of the following: CO2, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, temperature, or disturbance. Overall, the directional response of a species to one treatment was 13% more likely than expected to oppose its response to a another single-factor treatment. This tendency was detectable across the global data set, but held little predictive power for individual treatment combinations or within individual experiments. Although trade-offs in the ability to respond to different global change treatments exert discernible global effects, other forces obscure their influence in local communities

Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed

Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously

Appendix A. Figures showing responses of Centaurea solstitialis establishment and height to environmental change treatments, and showing the effect of Crepis vesicaria abundance on CO2 responses of Centaurea.

Figures showing responses of Centaurea solstitialis establishment and height to environmental change treatments, and showing the effect of Crepis vesicaria abundance on CO2 responses of Centaurea

Responses of grassland production to single and multiple global environmental changes.

In this century, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are expected to cause warmer surface temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns. At the same time, reactive nitrogen is entering natural systems at unprecedented rates. These global environmental changes have consequences for the functioning of natural ecosystems, and responses of these systems may feed back to affect climate and atmospheric composition. Here, we report plant growth responses of an ecosystem exposed to factorial combinations of four expected global environmental changes. We exposed California grassland to elevated CO2, temperature, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition for five years. Root and shoot production did not respond to elevated CO2 or modest warming. Supplemental precipitation led to increases in shoot production and offsetting decreases in root production. Supplemental nitrate deposition increased total production by an average of 26%, primarily by stimulating shoot growth. Interactions among the main treatments were rare. Together, these results suggest that production in this grassland will respond minimally to changes in CO2 and winter precipitation, and to small amounts of warming. Increased nitrate deposition would have stronger effects on the grassland. Aside from this nitrate response, expectations that a changing atmosphere and climate would promote carbon storage by increasing plant growth appear unlikely to be realized in this system