Apparent competition with an exotic plant reduces native plant establishment.

Biological invasions can change ecosystem function, have tremendous economic costs, and impact human health; understanding the forces that cause and maintain biological invasions is thus of immediate importance. A mechanism by which exotic plants might displace native plants is by increasing the pressure of native consumers on native plants, a form of indirect interaction termed "apparent competition." Using experimental exclosures, seed addition, and monitoring of small mammals in a California grassland, we examined whether exotic Brassica nigra increases the pressure of native consumers on a native bunchgrass, Nassella pulchra. Experimental plots were weeded to focus entirely on indirect effects via consumers. We demonstrate that B. nigra alters the activity of native small-mammal consumers, creating a gradient of consumption that dramatically reduces N. pulchra establishment. Previous work has shown that N. pulchra is a strong competitor, but that it is heavily seed limited. By demonstrating that consumer pressure is sufficient to curtail establishment, our work provides a mechanism for this seed limitation and suggests that, despite being a good competitor, N. pulchra cannot reestablish close to B. nigra within its old habitats because exotic-mediated consumption preempts direct competitive exclusion. Moreover, we find that apparent competition has a spatial extent, suggesting that consumers may dictate the rate of invasion and the area available for restoration, and that nonspatial studies of apparent competition may miss important dynamics.

ADAPTIVE RADIATION AND GENETIC DIFFERENTIATION IN THE HAWAIIAN SILVERSWORD ALLIANCE (COMPOSITAE: MADIINAE).

The Hawaiian silversword alliance consists of the three genera Dubautia, Argyroxiphium, and Wilkesia, and is a classic example of adaptive radiation in an insular setting. Genetic variation and interspecific genetic differentiation based on ten enzyme loci are described for Dubautia and Wilkesia. Genetic identities among species span the range of values expected from interpopulation comparisons within a single species (I = 0.90-1.00) to those typical of interspecific comparisons (I→=0.67). Genetic-identity values correspond to biogeographic distribution and morphological distinctiveness, supporting a correlation of increasing genetic distance associated with the time of separation among lineages. It may be inferred that the high genetic identities observed within the Hawaiian Madiinae and other island plant groups are due to limited time spans available for taxa to accumulate new genetic variation through mutation. It appears that species may remain genetically similar (I > 0.90) even after time spans on the order of magnitude of 1,000,000 years.