title: The invasive stoloniferous clonal plant Alternanthera philoxeroides outperforms its co-occurring non-invasive functional counterparts in heterogeneous soil environments - invasion implications.
abstract: Environmental heterogeneity is considered to play a defining role in promoting invasion success, and it favours clonal plants. Although clonality has been demonstrated to be correlated with the invasion success of several species of clonal invasive plants in heterogeneous environments, little is known about how the spatial scale of heterogeneity affects their performance. In addition, the factors that distinguish invasive from non-invasive clonal species and that enhance the invasive potential of clonal exotic invaders in heterogeneous environments remain unclear. In this study, we compared several traits of a noxious clonal invasive species, Alternanthera philoxeroides, with its co-occurring non-invasive functional counterparts, the native congener Alternanthera sessilis, the exotic Myriophyllum aquaticum and the native Jussiaea repens, in three manipulative substrates with different soil distribution patterns. We found that the invasive performance of A. philoxeroides was not enhanced by heterogeneity and that it was generally scale independent. However, A. philoxeroides showed some advantages over the three non-invasives with respect to trait values and phenotypic variation. These advantages may enhance the competitive capacity of A. philoxeroides and thus promote its invasion success in heterogeneous environments.
authors.affiliation: The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Tong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Jiangtao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Linlin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: The National Field Station of Liangzi Lake Ecosystem, Department of Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
authors.forename: Chunhua
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D027703:Amaranthaceae / Q000502:physiology*; D058865:Introduced Species