Invasibility and recoverability of a plant community following invasion depend on its successional stages

Highlights

•Exotic species cannot obtain more biomass when growing in new areas.

•The invasion ability of the exotic species decreased following succession.

•The recovery ability of native species increased following succession.

•Our study can strengthen our understanding of invasion and restoration ecology.

Abstract

Exotic species invasion represent important causes of harming the structure, function, and ecological environment in ecosystems. Yet, knowledge remains limited on the invasibility (invasion advantage of exotic species) and recoverability (recovery ability of native species) of a plant community following invasion depend on its successional stages. We selected three grasses of Setaria viridis, Artemisia gmelinii, and Bothriochloa ischemum representing early (E), middle (M), and late (L) successional species, respectively. Meanwhile, the grasses of Panicum virgatum was selected represent exotic species (invasion species). Three types of soil were collected to treat the three E, M, and L successional species, and one types of soil was collected to treat the exotic species. We compared the performance of the three native plant species and one exotic species grown in their “own” and “other” soils in a 2-year greenhouse experiment. Our study showed that exotic species performed better in soils of E and M successional species than in the soil of L successional species. After exotic species removed, E and M successional species exhibited poor growth in the soil of exotic species, while that of L successional species performed poor in field exotic species soils, but performed better in soils disturbed by exotic species. Our study demonstrated that the invasibility and recoverability of native plant communities changed with vegetation succession.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Invasion advantage / Recovery advantage / Plant growth / Exotic species / Grass / Greenhouse experiment

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Acknowledgments

We thank everyone who assisted with this work, including the experimental design, data collection and analysis, and writing of the manuscript. This research were funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41907409 and 41771557), and Special Scientific Research Project of Education Department of Shaanxi Provincial Government (19JK0524).

Author contributions

H.X., Z.A., and S.X. designed the experiment; H.X., G.B., M.G., and Q.Q. analyzed the data; H.X. and Z.A. wrote the manuscript. All authors made important contributions to the manuscript, and approved publication.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-021-0100-8 and is accessible for authorized users.

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