Nonnative plant invasion increases urban vegetation structure and influences arthropod communities

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Author(s)Mitchell, J. Christina
Author(s)D'Amico, Vincent III
Author(s)Trammell, Tara L. E.
Author(s)Frank, Steven D.
Date Accessioned2024-01-05T18:23:38Z
Date Available2024-01-05T18:23:38Z
Publication Date2023-08-07
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Diversity and Distributions. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13755. © 2023 The Authors. Diversity and Distributions published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
AbstractAim Ecological theory and empirical evidence indicate that greater structural complexity and diversity in plant communities increases arthropod abundance and diversity. Nonnative plants are typically associated with low arthropod abundance and diversity due to lack of evolutionary history. However, nonnative plants increase the structural complexity of forests, as is common in urban forests. Therefore, urban forests are ideal ecosystems to determine whether structural complexity associated with nonnative plants will increase abundance and diversity of arthropods, as predicted by complexity literature, or whether structural complexity associated with nonnative plants will be depauperate of arthropods, as predicted by nonnative plant literature. Location We sampled 24 urban temperate deciduous and mixed forests in two cites, Raleigh, North Carolina and Newark, Delaware, in the eastern United States. Methods We quantified ground cover vegetation and shrub layer vegetation in each forest and created structural complexity metrics to represent total, nonnative and native understory vegetation structural complexity. We vacuum sampled arthropods from vegetation and quantified the abundance, biomass, richness and diversity of spiders and non-spider arthropods. Results Nonnative plants increase understory vegetation complexity in urban forests. In Raleigh and Newark, we found support for the hypotheses that dense vegetation will increase arthropod abundance and biomass, and against the hypothesis that nonnative vegetation will decrease arthropods. Urban forest arthropod abundance and biomass, but not diversity, increased with greater nonnative and native structural complexity. Main Conclusions Invaded urban forests may provide adequate food in the form of arthropod biomass to transfer energy to the next trophic level, but likely fail to provide ecological services and functions offered by diverse species, like forest specialists. Urban land managers should survey urban forests for nonnative and native plant communities and prioritize replacing dense nonnative plants with native species when allocating vegetation maintenance resources.
SponsorWe would like to acknowledge the City of Raleigh, Town of Cary, North Carolina State University, US Forest Service, City of Newark and University of Delaware for providing access to research sites. Annemarie Nagle provided logistical support. Lawrence Long, Michael Just, Kristi Backe, Caleb Wilson and Jane Petzoldt provided advice regarding research design and statistical analyses. Catherine Crofton, Doua Jim Lor, Logan Tyson, Kyle Sozanski, Hannah Frank, Maggie Hamilton, Covel McDermot, Eric Moore, Carl Rosier, Zach Ladin, Matt McDermitt, Nathaly Rodriguez, Andrew Adams, Alyanna Wilson, R. Kevin Aiken, Laney Kimble, Sophia Copeman, Molly Carlson, Chandler Purser, Shawn Janairo, Owen Cass and R. David Mitchell helped in the field and laboratory. We appreciate data and access provided by FRAME researchers. Rebecca Irwin, Christopher Moorman, Clyde Sorenson and anonymous reviewers provided critical insights and suggestions that improved the manuscript. Funding was provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (2016-70006-25827 and 2018-70006-28914), United States Geological Survey (G19AP00041), North Carolina Forest Service, North Carolina Invasive Plant Council, North Carolina State University Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, and the University of Delaware Research Foundation.
CitationMitchell, J. C., D’Amico, V. III, Trammell, T. L. E., & Frank, S. D. (2023). Nonnative plant invasion increases urban vegetation structure and influences arthropod communities. Diversity and Distributions, 29, 1263–1277. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13755
ISSN1472-4642
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33777
Languageen_US
PublisherDiversity and Distributions
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywordsarthropod communities
Keywordsinsects
Keywordsnative
Keywordsnonnative
Keywordsspiders
Keywordsunderstory structural diversity
Keywordsurban forests
TitleNonnative plant invasion increases urban vegetation structure and influences arthropod communities
TypeArticle
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