Selection of preadapted populations allowed Senecio inaequidens to invade Central Europe

Invasive species often evolve rapidly in response to the novel biotic and abiotic conditions in their introduced range. Such adaptive evolutionary changes might play an important role in the success of some invasive species. Here, we investigated whether introduced European populations of the South...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Diversity & distributions 2008-07, Vol.14 (4), p.676-685
Main Authors: Bossdorf, Oliver, Lipowsky, Annett, Prati, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Aphididae
Aphidoidea
Aphids
Applied ecology
Asteraceae
Biodiversity Research
Biological and medical sciences
biological invasions
Botany
Conservation
Ecological genetics
Ecological invasion
EICA
Evolutionary biology
Flowers
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
genetic variation
Genetics
Herbivores
Invasive species
microevolution
Nonnative species
phenotypic plasticity
Plant populations
Plants
Population characteristics
Population ecology
Population genetics
Population growth
Senecio
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Summary:Invasive species often evolve rapidly in response to the novel biotic and abiotic conditions in their introduced range. Such adaptive evolutionary changes might play an important role in the success of some invasive species. Here, we investigated whether introduced European populations of the South African ragwort Senecio inaequidens (Asteraceae) have genetically diverged from native populations. We carried out a greenhouse experiment where 12 South African and 11 European populations were for several months grown at two levels of nutrient availability, as well as in the presence or absence of a generalist insect herbivore. We found that, in contrast to a current hypothesis, plants from introduced populations had a significantly lower reproductive output, but higher allocation to root biomass, and they were more tolerant to insect herbivory. Moreover, introduced populations were less genetically variable, but displayed greater plasticity in response to fertilization. Finally, introduced populations were phenotypically most similar to a subset of native populations from mountainous regions in southern Africa. Taking into account the species' likely history of introduction, our data support the idea that the invasion success of Senecio inaequidens in Central Europe is based on selective introduction of specific preadapted and plastic genotypes rather than on adaptive evolution in the introduced range.
ISSN:1366-9516
1472-4642
DOI:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00471.x