Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata

The effects of invasive plants on the species diversity of plant communities are controversial, showing either a positive or negative linear relationship. Based on community data collected from forty 5 m×5 m plots invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata in eight cities across Hainan Island, China, we fou...

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Main Authors:	Qi, Shan-Shan, Dai, Zhi-Cong, Zhai, De-Li, Chen, Si-Chong, Si, Chun-Can, Huang, Ping, Wang, Rui-Ping, Zhong, Qiong-Xin, Du, Dao-Lin
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2014
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4245253/

id	pubmed-4245253
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-42452532014-12-05 Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata Qi, Shan-Shan Dai, Zhi-Cong Zhai, De-Li Chen, Si-Chong Si, Chun-Can Huang, Ping Wang, Rui-Ping Zhong, Qiong-Xin Du, Dao-Lin Research Article The effects of invasive plants on the species diversity of plant communities are controversial, showing either a positive or negative linear relationship. Based on community data collected from forty 5 m×5 m plots invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata in eight cities across Hainan Island, China, we found S. trilobata decreased plant community diversity once its cover was beyond 10%. We demonstrated that the effects of invasive/native plants on the plant diversity of communities invaded by S. trilobata were curvilinear. These effects, which showed peaks under different degrees of vegetation cover, appeared not only for S. trilobata and all invasive plants, but also for all native plants. Invasive plants primarily had negative effects on plant diversity when they became abundant at a much lower cover level (less than 35%), compared with the native plants (over 60%). Thus, it is necessary to distinguish a range for assessing the effects of plants, especially invasive plants. Our results also confirmed that the invasion intensity of invasive alien plants increased with the intensity of local economic development. We highlight and further discuss the critical importance of curvilinear effects of biological invasion to provide ideas regarding the conservation of local biodiversity and the management of invasive plants. Public Library of Science 2014-11-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4245253/ /pubmed/25426856 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113964 Text en © 2014 Qi et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Qi, Shan-Shan Dai, Zhi-Cong Zhai, De-Li Chen, Si-Chong Si, Chun-Can Huang, Ping Wang, Rui-Ping Zhong, Qiong-Xin Du, Dao-Lin
spellingShingle	Qi, Shan-Shan Dai, Zhi-Cong Zhai, De-Li Chen, Si-Chong Si, Chun-Can Huang, Ping Wang, Rui-Ping Zhong, Qiong-Xin Du, Dao-Lin Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
author_facet	Qi, Shan-Shan Dai, Zhi-Cong Zhai, De-Li Chen, Si-Chong Si, Chun-Can Huang, Ping Wang, Rui-Ping Zhong, Qiong-Xin Du, Dao-Lin
author_sort	Qi, Shan-Shan
title	Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
title_short	Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
title_full	Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
title_fullStr	Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
title_full_unstemmed	Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata
title_sort	curvilinear effects of invasive plants on plant diversity: plant community invaded by sphagneticola trilobata
description	The effects of invasive plants on the species diversity of plant communities are controversial, showing either a positive or negative linear relationship. Based on community data collected from forty 5 m×5 m plots invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata in eight cities across Hainan Island, China, we found S. trilobata decreased plant community diversity once its cover was beyond 10%. We demonstrated that the effects of invasive/native plants on the plant diversity of communities invaded by S. trilobata were curvilinear. These effects, which showed peaks under different degrees of vegetation cover, appeared not only for S. trilobata and all invasive plants, but also for all native plants. Invasive plants primarily had negative effects on plant diversity when they became abundant at a much lower cover level (less than 35%), compared with the native plants (over 60%). Thus, it is necessary to distinguish a range for assessing the effects of plants, especially invasive plants. Our results also confirmed that the invasion intensity of invasive alien plants increased with the intensity of local economic development. We highlight and further discuss the critical importance of curvilinear effects of biological invasion to provide ideas regarding the conservation of local biodiversity and the management of invasive plants.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2014
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4245253/
_version_	1613161156593057792

Curvilinear Effects of Invasive Plants on Plant Diversity: Plant Community Invaded by Sphagneticola trilobata

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