title: Crabs mediate interactions between native and invasive salt marsh plants: a mesocosm study.
abstract: Soil disturbance has been widely recognized as an important factor influencing the structure and dynamics of plant communities. Although soil reworkers were shown to increase habitat complexity and raise the risk of plant invasion, their role in regulating the interactions between native and invasive species remains unclear. We proposed that crab activities, via improving soil nitrogen availability, may indirectly affect the interactions between invasive Spartina alterniflora and native Phragmites australis and Scirpus mariqueter in salt marsh ecosystems. We conducted a two-year mesocosm experiment consisting of five species combinations, i.e., monocultures of three species and pair-wise mixtures of invasive and native species, with crabs being either present or absent for each combination. We found that crabs could mitigate soil nitrogen depletion in the mesocosm over the two years. Plant performance of all species, at both the ramet-level (height and biomass per ramet) and plot-level (density, total above- and belowground biomass), were promoted by crab activities. These plants responded to crab disturbance primarily by clonal propagation, as plot-level performance was more sensitive to crabs than ramet-level. Moreover, crab activities altered the competition between Spartina and native plants in favor of the former, since Spartina was more promoted than native plants by crab activities. Our results suggested that crab activities may increase the competition ability of Spartina over native Phragmites and Scirpus through alleviating soil nitrogen limitation.
authors.affiliation: Coastal Ecosystems Research Station of the Yangtze River Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China ; Key Laboratory of Wetland Services and Restoration, Institute of Wetland Research, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Dong
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Yang-Yun
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jun-Jiong
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Xin-Ru
authors.initials: XR
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003386:Brachyura; D019669:Embryophyta / Q000254:growth & development*; D004780:Environment, Controlled; D058865:Introduced Species / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D053833:Wetlands
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D009584:Nitrogen
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