Data from: Lineage and latitudinal variation in Phragmites australis tolerance to herbivory: implications for invasion success ...

• Main Authors: Croy, Jordan, Meyerson, Laura, Allen, Warwick, Bhattarai, Ganesh, Cronin, James T.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2020
• Subjects: enemy release; invasive plant; Plant defenses; tolerance-resistance tradeoff; Phragmites australis; tolerance to defoliation; functional traits; McCormick; Saltonstall; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7280/d17d5h; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.7280/D17D5H

Herbivores play a critical role in plant invasions either by facilitating or inhibiting species establishment and spread. However, relatively few studies with invasive plant species have focused on the role of plant tolerance and how it varies geographically to influence invasion success. We conducted a common garden study using two lineages (native and invasive) of the grass Phragmites australis that are prevalent in North American wetlands. Using 31 populations collected across a broad geographic range, we tested five predictions: 1) the invasive lineage is more tolerant to simulated folivory than the native lineage, 2) tolerance to herbivory decreases with increasing latitude of origin of the populations, 3) estimates of tolerance are correlated with putative tolerance traits and plasticity in those traits, 4) a tradeoff exists between tolerance and resistance to herbivory, and 5) tolerance has a fitness cost. Response to folivory varied substantially among populations of P. australis, ranging from ... : From Croy et. al. (2020): Study system Phragmites australis is a 2-5 m tall perennial grass commonly found in wetlands, estuaries, salt marshes, ponds, and rivers on every continent except for Antarctica (Clevering and Lissner 1999). Although present in North American wetlands for millennia (Hansen 1978, Orson 1999), P. australis began spreading aggressively, dominating wetlands and negatively impacting native plant species, hydrologic regimes, nutrient cycles, and ecosystem function (Chambers et al. 1999, Meyerson et al. 2009, 2010). The rapid spread is attributed to the introduction of an invasive Eurasian lineage (Haplotype M; P. australis australis) that first appeared in the herbarium record about 150 years ago (Chambers et al. 1999, Saltonstall 2002). Populations of the Eurasian lineage in North America are genotypically diverse (Saltonstall 2003) and despite being clonal, genotypic variation has been identified within patches (McCormick et al. 2010). Additional haplotypes have been introduced from ...