Authors: Hua Yu WeiMing He Jian Liu ShiLi Miao Ming Dong
Publish Date: 2008/06/20
Volume: 11, Issue: 4, Pages: 835-
Abstract
Nutrients in exotic species and invaded communities play a key role in determining the dynamics of invaders and the invasibility of a receipt community This study focused on the effects of the native holoparasite Cuscuta campestris for short Cuscuta on nutrients in the exotic invasive Mikania micrantha for short Mikania and stands invaded by Mikania We conducted a set of field investigations on Mikania with Cuscuta parasitism for 1–4 years and measured soil properties community composition and the growth and nutrient content of Mikania and Cuscuta in two types of subcommunities ie with Mikania only or with Mikania and Cuscuta Cuscuta dramatically reduced the cover biomass and nutrients ie N P and K content of Mikania significantly enhanced soil water pH and nutrient content ie organic matter total N and P available P and K and greatly increased the cover and species richness of native plants In addition N and K of Cuscuta were positively correlated with N of Mikania which was negatively associated with soil total N available P and K These findings suggest that Cuscuta may be an effective measure against Mikania and be beneficial to the restoration of invaded communitiesWe are grateful to Feihai Yu and Shumin Zhang for their help on experimental design Susan M Carstenn Chris Edelstein and Sara Neugaard for polishing this manuscript Qijie Zan and Aiping Wu for their assistance during field investigation This study was supported by the program entitled Oversea Distinguished Scholars of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 58246G1215 and by the Grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China 30770335
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