Incorporation of an invasive plant into a native insect herbivore food web.

PeerJ. 2016 May 10;4:e1954. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1954. eCollection 2016.

Schilthuizen M¹, Santos Pimenta LP², Lammers Y³, Steenbergen PJ⁴, Flohil M⁵, Beveridge NG⁶, van Duijn PT⁷, Meulblok MM⁷, Sosef N⁷, van de Ven R⁷, Werring R⁷, Beentjes KK⁸, Meijer K⁹, Vos RA¹⁰, Vrieling K⁴, Gravendeel B¹¹, Choi Y¹², Verpoorte R⁴, Smit C⁹, Beukeboom LW⁹.

Author information

• ¹Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands; Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
• ²Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Departamento de Química, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
• ³Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center , Leiden , the Netherlands.
• ⁴Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University , Leiden , the Netherlands.
• ⁵ServiceXS , Leiden , the Netherlands.
• ⁶Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands; Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
• ⁷Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands; University of Applied Sciences Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands.
• ⁸Biodiversity Discovery group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center , Leiden , the Netherlands.
• ⁹Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen , Groningen , the Netherlands.
• ¹⁰Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands; IBED, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• ¹¹Endless Forms group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands; Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; University of Applied Sciences Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands.
• ¹²Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Natural Products Laboratory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.

Abstract

The integration of invasive species into native food webs represent multifarious dynamics of ecological and evolutionary processes. We document incorporation of Prunus serotina (black cherry) into native insect food webs. We find that P. serotina harbours a herbivore community less dense but more diverse than its native relative, P. padus (bird cherry), with similar proportions of specialists and generalists. While herbivory on P. padus remained stable over the past century, that on P. serotina gradually doubled. We show that P. serotina may have evolved changes in investment in cyanogenic glycosides compared with its native range. In the leaf beetle Gonioctena quinquepunctata, recently shifted from native Sorbus aucuparia to P. serotina, we find divergent host preferences on Sorbus- versus Prunus-derived populations, and weak host-specific differentiation among 380 individuals genotyped for 119 SNP loci. We conclude that evolutionary processes may generate a specialized herbivore community on an invasive plant, allowing prognoses of reduced invasiveness over time. On the basis of the results presented here, we would like to caution that manual control might have the adverse effect of a slowing down of processes of adaptation, and a delay in the decline of the invasive character of P. serotina.

KEYWORDS:

Adaptation; Exotic plants; Insect herbivores; Prunus serotina; Secondary metabolites

PMID:

27190702

PMCID:

PMC4867706

DOI:

10.7717/peerj.1954

[PubMed]

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