Effects of non-native Melilotus albus on pollination and reproduction in two boreal shrubs

The establishment of abundantly flowered, highly rewarding non-native plant species is expected to have strong consequences for native plants through altered pollination services, particularly in boreal forest where the flowering season is short and the pollinator pool is small. In 18 boreal forest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia 2015-10, Vol.179 (2), p.495-507
Main Authors: Spellman, Katie V., Schneller, Laura C., Mulder, Christa P. H., Carlson, Matthew L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Boreal forests
Ecology
Environment
Ericaceae - physiology
Flowers
Flowers - physiology
Fruit - physiology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Indigenous plants
Indigenous species
Introduced Species
Invasive plants
Life Sciences
Melilotus - physiology
Melilotus albus
Plant Sciences
Plant species
PLANT-MICROBE-ANIMAL INTERACTIONS
Plant-Microbe-Animal Interactions–Original Research
Pollen
Pollen - physiology
Pollination
Pollinators
Reproduction
Rhododendron
Seeds - physiology
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Weather
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Summary:The establishment of abundantly flowered, highly rewarding non-native plant species is expected to have strong consequences for native plants through altered pollination services, particularly in boreal forest where the flowering season is short and the pollinator pool is small. In 18 boreal forest sites, we added flowering Melilotus albus to some sites and left some sites as controls in 2 different years to test if the invasive plant influences the pollination and reproductive success of two co-flowering ericaceous species: Vaccinium vitis-idaea and Rhododendron groenlandicum. We found that M. albus increased the pollinator diversity and tended to increase visitation rates to the focal native plant species compared to control sites. Melilotus albus facilitated greater seed production per berry in V. vitis-idaea when we added 120 plants compared to when we added 40 plants or in control sites. In R. groenlandicum, increasing numbers of M. albus inflorescences lowered conspecific pollen loads and percentage of flowers pollinated; however, no differences in fruit set were detected. The number of M. albus inflorescences had greater importance in explaining R. groenlandicum pollination compared to other environmental variables such as weather and number of native flowers, and had greater importance in lower quality black spruce sites than in mixed deciduous and white spruce sites for explaining the percentage of V. vitisidaea flowers pollinated. Our data suggest that the identity of new pollinators attracted to the invaded sites, degree of shared pollinators between invasive and native species, and variation in resource limitation among sites are likely determining factors in the reproductive responses of boreal native plants in the presence of an invasive.
ISSN:0029-8549
1432-1939
DOI:10.1007/s00442-015-3364-9