Evidence of rapid evolution of an invasive poaceae in response to salinity
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Aquatic Sciences
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evidence of rapid evolution of an invasive poaceae in response to salinity Leticia Siman Bora1,2 · Sidinei Magela Thomaz1 · André Andrian Padial1,2,3 Received: 18 March 2020 / Accepted: 7 August 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Understanding how environmental factors and short-term evolution affect the growth of invasive plants is a central issue in Invasion Biology. For macrophytes, salinity is one of the main factors determining distribution along estuarine environments. Urochola arrecta is a Poaceae with high invasive potential in several freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. In South Brazilian estuaries, this species is found sparsely in mangroves, and invades successfully freshwaters and areas with low salinity. We experimentally described the U. arrecta tolerance to salt. Furthermore, we tested if the response to the saline gradient depends on the population origin, through an experiment with populations inhabiting estuarine and freshwater ecosystems. We designed the experiment with three populations of this species, expecting that estuarine populations were more resistant to salinity. Plants grew in a salinity gradient and after 40 days we measured macrophytes biomass and length. Salinity was highly stressful for U. arrecta independently of its origin. Even so, plant growth differed significantly among populations. Despite higher growth, the population originated from freshwater habitats presented the fastest decrease in performance indicators with increasing salinity. This result indicates short-term evolutionary changes because all populations grew commongarden conditions in our experiment. Furthermore, salinity did not prevent the full establishment of this plant, since almost all propagules developed roots even in the saline treatments. Differences among populations suggest that invasion potential of this species can be higher than predicted by the environmental conditions of current invaded sites. Constant monitoring in estuarine invaded ecosystems is central to manage invasions in critical ecosystems, such as mangroves areas. Keywords Aquatic plants · Salinity · Plant physiology · Environmental filters · Estuaries · Biological invasion
Introduction * André Andrian Padial [email protected] Leticia Siman Bora [email protected] Sidinei Magela Thomaz [email protected] 1
Programa de Pós‑graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais, Núcleo de Pesquisa em Limnologia, Ictiologia e Aquicultura (Nupelia), Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Maringá, PR, Brazil
2
Laboratório de Análise e Síntese em Biodiversidade, Departamento de Botânica, Programa de Pós‑graduação em Ecologia e Conservação, Setor de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
3
Programa de Pós‑graduação em Botânica, Departamento de Botânica, Setor de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
Macrophytes play important ecological roles, but some species become invasive and threat aquatic en
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