Polyploidy and high environmental tolerance increase the invasive success of plants
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REGULAR PAPER – ECOLOGY/ECOPHYSIOLOGY/ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY
Polyploidy and high environmental tolerance increase the invasive success of plants Renan Fernandes Moura1 · Drielly Queiroga2 · Egon Vilela3 · Ana Paula Moraes4 Received: 25 September 2019 / Accepted: 19 October 2020 © The Botanical Society of Japan 2020
Abstract Ploidy level and genome size (GS) could affect the invasive capacity of plants, although these parameters can be contradictory. While small GS seems to favor dispersion, polyploidy—which increases the GS—also seems to favor it. Using a phylogenetic path analysis, we evaluated the effects of both factors on the environmental tolerance and invasive success of plants. We selected 99 invasive plant species from public online databases and gathered information about invasive capacity (number of non-original countries in which each species occurs), tolerance to environmental factors, ploidy level, and GS. The invasive capacity varied depending on the ploidy level and tolerance to environmental factors. Polyploids and species with increased tolerance to elevated temperatures and rainfall values exhibited high invasive capacity. We found no evidence that GS affects the invasive capacity of plants. We suggest that the genetic variability provided by polyploidization has a positive impact on plant competitiveness, which may ultimately lead to an increased ability to colonize new environments. In a global warming scenario, integrative approaches using phenotypic, genetic, epigenetic, and ecological traits should be a productive route to unveil the aspects of invasive plants. Keywords Abiotic factors · Alien species · Climate change · Ecological tradeoff · Invasiveness · Polyploidy
Introduction Factors that influence the invasive capacity of plant species have been a matter of interest for a long time (Colautti and MacIsaac 2004; Oduor 2013; Rejmánek 1996; Williamson and Fitter 1996). The genome size (GS) and ploidy level, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-020-01236-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Renan Fernandes Moura [email protected] 1
Programa de Pós‑Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação de Recursos Naturais, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia, MG 38402‑020, Brazil
2
Programa de Pós‑Graduação em Entomologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP 14040‑900, Brazil
3
Programa de Pós‑Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO 74690‑900, Brazil
4
Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, SP 09606‑070, Brazil
however, have been poorly considered when studying the dispersive process of plants (but see Linder and Barker 2014; Suda et al. 2015; Veselý et al. 2020). GS is the amount of DNA stored in a gametophytic cell nucleus, i.e., the haploid genome (1C; reviewed by Greilhuber et al. 2005). The nuclear genome stores hereditary information of organisms, but its size a
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