Germination responses of an invasive species in native and non-native ranges

By J. Hierro, Ö. Eren, L. Khetsuriani, A. Diaconu, K. Török, Daniel Montesinos, K. Andonian, D. Kikodze, Levan Janoian, D. Villarreal and 2 more. 2009

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Studying germination in the native and non-native range of a species can provide unique insights into processes of range expansion and adaptation; however, traits related to germination have rarely been compared between native and nonnative populations. In a series of common garden experiments, we explored whether differences in the seasonality of precipitation, specifically, summer drought vs summer rain, and the amount and variation of annual and seasonal precipitation affect the germination responses of populations of an annual ruderal plant, Centaurea solstitialis, from its native range and from two non-native regions with different climates. We found that seeds from all native populations, irrespective of the precipitation seasonality of the region in which they occurred, and non-native populations from regions with dry summers displayed similarly high germination proportions and rates. In contrast, genotypes from the non-native region with predominantly summer rain exhibited much lower germination fractions and rates. Also, percent germination was strongly correlated with variation in precipitation in winter, the season that follows germination for C. solstitialis. Specifically, germination was lower for native and non-native populations experiencing greater variation in winter precipitation. This correlation, however, was greatly influenced by the non-native region with summer rain, which also exhibited the greatest variation in winter precipitation among studied regions. These results suggest that rather than general climatic patterns, the degree of risk experienced at early developmental stages could exert an important control over the germination strategy of C. solstitialis populations in both native and non-native ranges. Also, these findings reveal a largely unique germination response in C. solstitialis genotypes growing in the non-native region with summer rain and high variation in winter precipitation. Our work raises the possibility that rapid adaptive changes in germination strategies may contribute to the success of globally distributed invaders.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/79a888e6a3e049551fa5b41169dd0b9177829718

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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Citations in the corpus

Early bird catches the worm: germination as a critical step in plant invasion (2016, background): “…from native (Turkey: summer drought; Georgia: summer rain) and non-native populations (California: summer drought; Argentina: summer rain) show that percentage germination of seed from non-native populations is strongly associated with variation in winter precipitation (Hierro et al. 2009).”
Germination, Postgermination Adaptation, and Species Ecological Ranges (2010, background): “Pearson et al. (2002) suggested that the distribution of tropical trees within a patch of forest is mostly determined by their seeds’ germination requirements, and Hobbie & Chapin (1998) found that germination and recruitment limitation determined the latitudinal range of five tree species.”
The phenology of plant invasions: a community ecology perspective (2011, unknown): “…may vary among species; while some may alter their germination strategies rapidly in introduced habitats in response to new climate patterns (Hierro et al. 2009), others may have simple germination cues (eg responding only to temperature or rainfall, as opposed to both) that allow them to…”
An inventory of invasive alien species in China (2012, background): “According to Moloney et al. (2009), a bias by maternal effects could be avoided by using second-generation offspring.”
Beyond climate: disturbance niche shifts in invasive species (2015, background): “These findings have important consequences for analyses of invasion risk because models that consider only the niche in the native range could greatly underestimate the invasion potential of non-native species (Hierro et al., 2009; Jiménez-Valverde et al., 2011).”
Timing is everything: does early and late germination favor invasions by herbaceous alien plants? (2016, unknown): “2014), Centaurea solstitialis (Hierro et al. 2009) and Cardamine hirsuta (Kudoh et al.”