Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Phylogenetically Novel Species Are More Successful Due To High Competitive Ability At Local And Regional Scales, Amy C. Patterson May 2015

Phylogenetically Novel Species Are More Successful Due To High Competitive Ability At Local And Regional Scales, Amy C. Patterson

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

While few introduced exotic species become invasive, this small number of species poses serious threats to biodiversity, ecosystem function, and recreation, leading ecologists to study why certain species become invasive and why certain communities are prone to invasions. Several leading hypotheses seek to explain invasiveness, including the Enemy Release Hypothesis, the trait superiority hypothesis, and the Biotic Resistance Hypothesis, but none are consistently supported in the literature. We suggest that the lack of uniting hypothesis is a result of the inability to put multiple proposed mechanisms in the same framework, and suggest for a uniting framework Darwin’s Naturalization Hypothesis along …


Phylogenetically Novel Species Are More Successful Due To High Competitive Ability At Local And Regional Scales, Amy C. Patterson Apr 2015

Phylogenetically Novel Species Are More Successful Due To High Competitive Ability At Local And Regional Scales, Amy C. Patterson

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Invasive species are widely considered to be a major threat to native biodiversity, however some studies suggest that exotic species seldom cause the extinction of native species, and may even increase biodiversity at some spatial scales. This leads to the question of whether exotic plant species that have naturalized to a new range are biologically distinct from their native counterparts. Here, we chose one common native and one common exotic plant species from each of five plant families, and evaluated their growth over one growing season for two proposed mechanisms of biological invasion. We evaluated the Enemy Release Hypothesis (ERH), …


A Seasonal, Density-Dependent Model For The Management Of An Invasive Weed, Esther Shyu, Eleanor A. Pardini, Tiffany M. Knight, Hal Caswell Dec 2013

A Seasonal, Density-Dependent Model For The Management Of An Invasive Weed, Esther Shyu, Eleanor A. Pardini, Tiffany M. Knight, Hal Caswell

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

The population effects of harvest depend on complex interactions between density dependence, seasonality, stage structure, and management timing. Here we present a periodic nonlinear matrix population model that incorporates seasonal density dependence with stage-selective and seasonally selective harvest. To this model, we apply newly developed perturbation analyses to determine how population densities respond to changes in harvest and demographic parameters. We use the model to examine the effects of popular control strategies and demographic perturbations on the invasive weed garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). We find that seasonality is a major factor in harvest outcomes, because population dynamics may …


The Effects Of Invasive Plants On Biodiversity Across Spatial Scales, Kristin Irene Powell Sep 2013

The Effects Of Invasive Plants On Biodiversity Across Spatial Scales, Kristin Irene Powell

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Although introduced plant species are often considered to be one of the most notable anthropogenic threats to biodiversity, their influence on biodiversity remains controversial. Some studies have shown large declines in biodiversity in plant-invaded areas, whereas others have noted that plant invasions are rarely implicated as the cause of species extinctions. This dissertation aims to synthesize this seemingly conflicting literature on the effects of invasive plants on biodiversity. The overarching hypothesis in this research is that the effect of invasive plant species on biodiversity is scale-dependent, and the discrepancy among studies can be explained by a difference in the scales …