TY - JOUR
T1 - The intermediate disturbance hypothesis and plant invasions
T2 - Implications for species richness and management
AU - Catford, Jane A.
AU - Daehler, Curtis C.
AU - Murphy, Helen T.
AU - Sheppard, Andy W.
AU - Hardesty, Britta D.
AU - Westcott, David A.
AU - Rejmánek, Marcel
AU - Bellingham, Peter J.
AU - Pergl, Jan
AU - Horvitz, Carol C.
AU - Hulme, Philip E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Ideas for this paper were developed at workshops supported by the ARC-NZ Research Network for Vegetation Function – Invasive Plants in Tropics (leader: BDH). Thanks to other working group members, Ragan Callaway and Saara DeWalt. Comments from the editors and three anonymous reviewers helped us improve the manuscript. JAC was partly supported by the Applied Environmental Decision Analysis CERF ; HTM, AWS, BDH and DAW were supported by CSIRO ; JP was partly supported by AV0Z60050516 and IAA600050811 ( Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic ); PJB was partly supported by the NZ Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ecosystem resilience OBI) .
PY - 2012/6/20
Y1 - 2012/6/20
N2 - The intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) predicts a hump-shaped pattern between community diversity and disturbance, and is central to understanding patterns of species diversity. Here, we examine IDH in the context of alien plant invasions. IDH can offer insight into the role of disturbance in facilitating plant invasions and the effect of these invasions on floristic diversity.Early stages of succession are most susceptible to invasion because resources and colonisation opportunities are elevated after disturbance. This trend is accentuated by human-mediated dispersal, a bias towards early successional species in the alien species pool, the tendency for fast-growing species to profit most from enemy release, and increased disturbance levels in human-modified habitats. Human disturbance, coupled with plant introductions, extends the diversity-disturbance curve and shifts peak diversity towards higher disturbance levels. However, invasive aliens can reduce native diversity at the community scale, especially in mid succession where competitive interactions structure communities. Certain invasive plants may have higher impacts because they overcome some life history tradeoffs as a result of their association with humans or novel evolutionary histories, e.g. enemy release. This may directly or indirectly (e.g. through plastic reallocation of resources from defence into growth) enable invasive plants to colonise earlier or persist into later stages of succession. By modifying disturbance regimes, invaders that transform the environment may also interfere with succession and precipitate low diversity communities. Low introduction rates of late successional species may currently limit impacts of aliens under infrequent disturbance.IDH is a useful framework for understanding ecological communities. However, because of the novel evolutionary histories of alien species and the anthropogenic context in which they invade, disturbance levels that maximise total diversity in invaded communities can differ from those that maximise native diversity. Joint consideration of IDH and alien invasion patterns suggests a range of strategies can be used to manage diversity.
AB - The intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) predicts a hump-shaped pattern between community diversity and disturbance, and is central to understanding patterns of species diversity. Here, we examine IDH in the context of alien plant invasions. IDH can offer insight into the role of disturbance in facilitating plant invasions and the effect of these invasions on floristic diversity.Early stages of succession are most susceptible to invasion because resources and colonisation opportunities are elevated after disturbance. This trend is accentuated by human-mediated dispersal, a bias towards early successional species in the alien species pool, the tendency for fast-growing species to profit most from enemy release, and increased disturbance levels in human-modified habitats. Human disturbance, coupled with plant introductions, extends the diversity-disturbance curve and shifts peak diversity towards higher disturbance levels. However, invasive aliens can reduce native diversity at the community scale, especially in mid succession where competitive interactions structure communities. Certain invasive plants may have higher impacts because they overcome some life history tradeoffs as a result of their association with humans or novel evolutionary histories, e.g. enemy release. This may directly or indirectly (e.g. through plastic reallocation of resources from defence into growth) enable invasive plants to colonise earlier or persist into later stages of succession. By modifying disturbance regimes, invaders that transform the environment may also interfere with succession and precipitate low diversity communities. Low introduction rates of late successional species may currently limit impacts of aliens under infrequent disturbance.IDH is a useful framework for understanding ecological communities. However, because of the novel evolutionary histories of alien species and the anthropogenic context in which they invade, disturbance levels that maximise total diversity in invaded communities can differ from those that maximise native diversity. Joint consideration of IDH and alien invasion patterns suggests a range of strategies can be used to manage diversity.
KW - Alien species
KW - Biological diversity
KW - Community ecology
KW - Life history tradeoffs
KW - Species coexistence
KW - Succession
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ppees.2011.12.002
DO - 10.1016/j.ppees.2011.12.002
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:84860833944
VL - 14
SP - 231
EP - 241
JO - Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics
JF - Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics
SN - 1433-8319
IS - 3
ER -