Invasive herbaceous respond more negatively to elevated ozone concentration than native species

Aim: Many studies show that increase in ground-level ozone (O3) has adverse effects on plant growth. Due to high phenotypic plasticity, invasive species is considered to be more adaptable to elevated O3 than native species. This idea is only tested by the very limited studies comparing invasive weeds with crops. However, whether it holds remains unclear when comparing invasive species with their co-occurring native species in natural systems.

Location: China

Methods: We performed an open-top chamber experiment growing six congeneric pairs of invasive and native species with and without competition under ambient (approximately 43 ppb) and elevated O3 (approximately 89 ppb) concentrations to test whether the growth responses to elevated O3 concentrations differ between invasive and native species.

Results: Our results revealed that elevated O3 had a significant negative effect on both invasive and native species. In particular, elevated O3 reduced the aboveground biomass and dama...