Invasive herbaceous respond more negatively to elevated ozone concentration than native species

Abstract

AimMany studies show that increase in ground-level ozone (O3) has adverse effects on plant growth. Due to high phenotypic plasticity, invasive species is considered to be more adaptable to elevated O3 than native species. This idea is only tested by the very limited studies comparing invasive weeds with crops. However, whether it holds remains unclear when comparing invasive species with their co-occurring native species in natural systems.LocationChina.MethodsWe performed an open-top chamber experiment growing six congeneric pairs of invasive and native species with and without competition under ambient (approximately 43 ppb) and elevated O3 (approximately 89 ppb) concentrations to test whether the growth responses to elevated O3 concentrations differ between invasive and native species.ResultsOur results revealed that elevated O3 had a significant negative effect on both invasive and native species. In particular, elevated O3 reduced the aboveground biomass and damaged the leaves of invasive species significantly more than those of native species.Main conclusionsOur study indicates that elevated O3 concentration has a stronger adverse effect on invasive species than on native species. Therefore, increasing O3 pollution might suppress plant invasion, and thus invasive species might expand their distribution more easily to the area with lower O3 pollution in the future.