Emerging fungal pathogen of an invasive grass: Implications for competition with native plant species

This data package includes data and code from an experiment testing the effects of a leaf spot fungal infection and competition from the invasive (to the U.S.) grass Microstegium vimineum on the performance of three native grass species: Dichanthelium clandestinum, Elymus virginicus, and Eragrostis spectabilis. The experiment was performed between June and September of 2019 in a greenhouse on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, FL, USA. The leaf spot infection is caused by the fungal pathogen Bipolaris gigantea, which has recently emerged on populations of M. vimineum in the U.S. We tested the hypothesis that infection of B. gigantea would both directly and indirectly affect the native grass species by measuring the change in biomass of each species with and without pathogen inoculation (direct effects) and by measuring the effect of pathogen inoculation on M. vimineum competition through changes in native grass biomass across a density gradient of M. vimneum (indirect effects). The code includes statistical analyses and figures. The code was run using R (version 4.0.1).