title: Native plant diversity increases herbivory to non-natives.
abstract: There is often an inverse relationship between the diversity of a plant community and the invasibility of that community by non-native plants. Native herbivores that colonize novel plants may contribute to diversity-invasibility relationships by limiting the relative success of non-native plants. Here, we show that, in large collections of non-native oak trees at sites across the USA, non-native oaks introduced to regions with greater oak species richness accumulated greater leaf damage than in regions with low oak richness. Underlying this trend was the ability of herbivores to exploit non-native plants that were close relatives to their native host. In diverse oak communities, non-native trees were on average more closely related to native trees and received greater leaf damage than those in depauperate oak communities. Because insect herbivores colonize non-native plants that are similar to their native hosts, in communities with greater native plant diversity, non-natives experience greater herbivory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Illinois Natural History Survey, 1816 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA ipearse@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Ian S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Pearse
authors.affiliation: The Morton Arboretum, 4100 Illinois Route 53, Lisle, IL 60532, USA Deptartment of Botany, The Field Museum, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Hipp
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060434:Herbivory; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D058865:Introduced Species; D010802:Phylogeny; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000502:physiology; D029963:Quercus / Q000502:physiology*; D013045:Species Specificity; D014481:United States
keywords: biotic resistance hypothesis; enemy release hypothesis; host breadth; invasions; phylogenetic relatedness