Supplementary material for 'An exotic and invasive tree creates host switch opportunities for a native mistletoe'

Abstract:
Invasive plants often disrupt communities due to high investments in growth and reproduction caused by enemy release (enemy release hypothesis) and mutualistic interactions established in invaded ranges. However, parasitic plants such as mistletoes are capable of infecting and decreasing the performance of several host plants, depending on the seed deposition provided by birds and the compatibility between mistletoe and plant hosts. We investigated the performance of the native mistletoe Phoradendron quadrangulare (Santalaceae) infecting native and invasive host plants in southeastern Brazil. We mimicked bird seed dispersal and attached mistletoe seeds to twigs of five native hosts (genera Handroanthus, Moquiniastrum, Pera, Schinus, Tapirira) and five exotic and highly invasive plants (Leucaena, Melia, Pinus, Psidium, and Ricinus). Although mistletoe’s seeds germinated on all hosts, germination and three-year seedling survival were much higher in the invasive Melia, where mistletoes also reached larger size and began reproducing first. Although some exotic plants escape establishment of parasitic plants, the invasive Melia improves the performance of the native mistletoe. Given the large impact mistletoes have on community structure and ecological processes, this host switch may amplify the impact of the invasive plant on the invaded community in much larger and unappreciated ways.

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Here we show a list of the files uploaded and their contents:
Eletronic Supplementary Material: Supplementary material for 'An exotic and invasive tree creates host switch opportunities for a native mistletoe', including supplementary Figures S1 and S2, and Table S1.Read.me: file with data description and file structure.germination_mistletoes: Script containing the code used to analyse germination datagermination_data.txt: Table containing the raw data used in germination data analysissurvival_mistletoes: Script containing the code used to analyse survival data, including bark investment.survival_mistletoes_data.txt: Table containing the raw data used in the survival data analysisbark_regression_WR: Table containing raw data used in the survival and bark investment analysis.