Intra‐ and Inter‐Specific Ecological Impacts Vary Across a Gradient of Abundance of an Invasive Species, Bothriochloa ischaemum, in a Mixed‐Grass Prairie

TL;DR

This study shows how an invasive grass affects native plants and changes ecosystems as it becomes more common in a prairie.

Contribution

The study reveals how the invasive grass Bothriochloa ischaemum impacts native plants and communities across different levels of invasion abundance.

Findings

Increasing Bothriochloa ischaemum abundance reduces native grass height and abundance.

Invasion leads to shifts in species richness and functional group composition.

Legume abundance impact saturates at low invader abundance.

Abstract

Managing biological invasions is one of the top priorities of biodiversity conservation. Invasive plants are a well‐known threat to native plant and animal communities, and understanding their ecological impacts is critical to developing individualized management strategies. While much is known about the impacts of invasive plants, there are still questions about the per capita effects along invasion abundance gradients across levels of biological organization. In this study we investigate how the ecological impacts of the invasive grass
Bothriochloa ischaemum
vary across a gradient of invasion and whether effects are consistent across population (abundance and functional traits of a dominant native grass,
Schizachyrium scoparium
) and community (species richness and composition) levels. We found that most of the ecological impacts of
B. ischaemum
scale linearly with its abundance across population and community levels. Increasing invasion reduces the height and abundance of the dominant native
S. scoparium
individuals and shifts their functional trait composition. Increasing invasion also reduces cover of native C3 and C4 grasses, total foliar cover, subdominant foliar cover, species richness, and leads to shifts in species and functional group composition. However, the impact on legume abundance saturated at low invader abundance (1%–15% cover) and remained constant as invader abundance increased. We show that the direct ecological impacts of invasive species may be compounded by shifts in the functional traits of dominant native species toward more conservative traits and shifts in species and functional group composition, leading toward a shift in population and community structure and function.

The invasive grass
Bothriochloa ischaemum
negatively impacts native plant communities along an invasion gradient, reducing native grass abundance, plant species richness, and altering functional traits and overall community structure. Most intra‐ and inter‐specific effects increase with greater invader abundance.

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