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Can transgenerational plasticity contribute to the invasion success of annual plant species?

  • Population ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Adaptive transgenerational plasticity (TGP), i.e., significantly higher fitness when maternal and offspring conditions match, might contribute to the population growth of non-native species in highly variable environments. However, comparative studies that directly test this hypothesis are lacking. Therefore, we performed a reciprocal split-brood experiment to compare TGP in response to N and water availability in single populations of two invasive (Amaranthus retroflexus, Galinsoga parviflora) and two congeneric non-invasive introduced species (Amaranthus albus, Galinsoga ciliata). We hypothesized that the transgenerational effect is adaptive: (1) in invasive species compared with non-invasive adventives, and (2) in stressful conditions compared with resource-rich environments. The phenotypic variation among offspring was generated, in large part, by our experimental treatments in the maternal generation; therefore, we demonstrated a direct TGP effect on the offspring’s adult fitness. We found evidence, for the first time, that invasive and non-invasive adventive species differ regarding the expression of TGP in the adult stage, as adaptive responses were found exclusively in the invasive species. The manifestation of TGP was more explicit under resource-rich conditions; therefore, it might contribute to the population dynamics of non-native species in resource-rich sites rather than to their ecological tolerance spectra.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to L. Bartha, M. Beldean, P. Domokos, E. Fodor, A. Kozma, T. Kuhn, B. Lózer, Z. Nyika, O. Pál and H. Téglás for their assistance during the experiments, L. Sutcliffe for polishing the English of the manuscript, and to two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank the Alexandru Borza Botanical Garden, Cluj-Napoca, especially Prof. Vasile Cristea for ensuring the necessary infrastructure during the experiment. We thank J. A. Lau for helpful comments on the manuscript. The experiments comply with the current laws of the country (Romania) in which they were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hungarian Department of Biology and Ecology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Republicii Street 42, 400015, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Annamária Fenesi, Júliánna Geréd, Dorottya Sándor & Eszter Ruprecht

  2. Department of Biology and Geology, University of South Carolina Aiken, 471 University Parkway, Aiken, SC, 29801, USA

    Andrew R. Dyer

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  1. Annamária Fenesi
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  2. Andrew R. Dyer
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Correspondence to Annamária Fenesi.

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Communicated by Jennifer A. Lau.

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Fenesi, A., Dyer, A.R., Geréd, J. et al. Can transgenerational plasticity contribute to the invasion success of annual plant species?. Oecologia 176, 95–106 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2994-7

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