Non-Native Plants Attain Native Levels of Microherbivory Richness With Time and Range Expansion

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Invasive Species Biology
• Community Ecology

Background:

• Non-native plants are often excluded from ecological networks due to a lack of co-evolutionary history with native species.
• Understanding the integration of non-native plants into existing trophic networks is crucial for predicting ecosystem impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the factors influencing the integration of non-native plants into plant-microherbivore interactions across Europe.
• To determine if non-native plants can achieve similar levels of microherbivore richness as native plants.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a large-scale dataset of 127,000 plant-microherbivore interactions across Europe.
• Analyzed the relationship between non-native plant traits (time since introduction, range size, relatedness to native flora, geographic origin) and associated microherbivore species richness.

Main Results:

• Native plants hosted significantly more microherbivore species than non-native plants.
• For non-native plants, time since introduction and range size were stronger predictors of microherbivore richness than relatedness or origin.
• Plants introduced over 200 years ago or with large ranges supported microherbivore richness comparable to native plants, but with a higher proportion of generalist species.

Conclusions:

• Trophic networks can rapidly incorporate novel plant species, with microherbivore communities on non-natives approaching native levels over relatively short ecological timescales.
• While overall richness can be similar, the persistence of specialized interactions remains largely dependent on native flora.