Do invasive species show higher phenotypic plasticity than native species and, if so, is it adaptive? A meta-analysis

Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 419-431 ABSTRACT: Do invasive plant species have greater phenotypic plasticity than non-invasive species? And, if so, how does this affect their fitness relative to native, non-invasive species? What role might this play in plant invasions? To answer these long-standing qu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2011-04, Vol.14 (4), p.419-431
Main Authors: Davidson, Amy Michelle, Jennions, Michael, Nicotra, Adrienne B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Physiological
Adaptive
alien
Biological Evolution
climate change
Data processing
Ecosystem
environmental gradient
Flowers & plants
Genetic Fitness
Genotype & phenotype
indigenous
Introduced Species
Magnoliopsida - genetics
Magnoliopsida - growth & development
Meta-analysis
Phenotype
Plant Physiological Phenomena
resource
Species Specificity
weed
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 419-431 ABSTRACT: Do invasive plant species have greater phenotypic plasticity than non-invasive species? And, if so, how does this affect their fitness relative to native, non-invasive species? What role might this play in plant invasions? To answer these long-standing questions, we conducted a meta-analysis using data from 75 invasive/non-invasive species pairs. Our analysis shows that invasive species demonstrate significantly higher phenotypic plasticity than non-invasive species. To examine the adaptive benefit of this plasticity, we plotted fitness proxies against measures of plasticity in several growth, morphological and physiological traits to test whether greater plasticity is associated with an improvement in estimated fitness. Invasive species were nearly always more plastic in their response to greater resource availability than non-invasives but this plasticity was only sometimes associated with a fitness benefit. Intriguingly, non-invasive species maintained greater fitness homoeostasis when comparing growth between low and average resource availability. Our finding that invasive species are more plastic in a variety of traits but that non-invasive species respond just as well, if not better, when resources are limiting, has interesting implications for predicting responses to global change.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01596.x