Plants (Mar 2023)

Increased Leaf Bacterial Network Complexity along the Native Plant Diversity Gradient Facilitates Plant Invasion?

  • Xiang-Deng Du,
  • Jiang Wang,
  • Congcong Shen,
  • Jichen Wang,
  • Zhongwang Jing,
  • Li-Nan Huang,
  • Zhen-Hao Luo,
  • Yuan Ge

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12061406
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 6
p. 1406

Abstract

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Understanding the mechanisms of biological invasion is critical to biodiversity protection. Previous studies have produced inconsistent relationships between native species richness and invasibility, referred to as the invasion paradox. Although facilitative interactions among species have been proposed to explain the non-negative diversity–invasibility relationship, little is known about the facilitation of plant-associated microbes in invasions. We established a two-year field biodiversity experiment with a native plant species richness gradient (1, 2, 4, or 8 species) and analyzed the effects of community structure and network complexity of leaf bacteria on invasion success. Our results indicated a positive relationship between invasibility and network complexity of leaf bacteria of the invader. Consistent with previous studies, we also found that native plant species richness increased the leaf bacterial diversity and network complexity. Moreover, the results of the leaf bacteria community assembly of the invader suggested that the complex bacteria community resulted from higher native diversity rather than higher invader biomass. We concluded that increased leaf bacterial network complexity along the native plant diversity gradient likely facilitated plant invasion. Our findings provided evidence of a potential mechanism by which microbes may affect the plant community invasibility, hopefully helping to explain the non-negative relationship between native diversity and invasibility.

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