Winter establishment of the alien annual Schismus barbatus is not affected by insect herbivory in Northern-Central Monte Desert |
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Institution: | 1. Department of range management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran;2. College of Natural Resource, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran;1. INRA, UMR 1392, Institut d''Ecologie et des Sciences de l''Environnement de Paris, Versailles, France;4. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands;5. Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany;1. College of Agriculture, Shanxi Agricultural University, China;2. Taiyuan Customs Technology Center, China |
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Abstract: | We studied the effect of ant herbivory on the establishment and survival of the annual plant Schismus barbatus. We hypothesized that ants may control this species when biomass of native plants is generally low during their vegetative period. We predicted that ant herbivory will decrease plant survival and reproduction. We tested our prediction with an insect exclosure experiment in a sandy desert of Northern-Central Monte.We found more than 12 000 established seedlings per square meter on early May, after two consecutive rain pulses of ca. 20 mm each. Overall, we found that almost 75% of recruited plants survived by the end of the cool season (September), and that 22–24% of the initially established plants survived as mature reproductive plants by the end of the growing season (December). Contrary to our expectation, insect herbivory did not affect plant establishment, plant survival or the proportion of flowering and fruiting individuals of S. barbatus.The large number of seedlings reported, the ability to exploit a temporal window free of plant competitors and enemies, and the availability of microsites where this species can succeed, all suggest that S. barbatus may have the potential to become an important plant invader in the Monte Desert. |
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