Abstract
Release from enemies can lead to rapid evolution in invasive plants, including reduced metabolic investment in defence. Conversely, reassociation with enemies leads to renewed evolution of defence, but the potential costs of this evolution are poorly documented. We report increased resistance of the invader Ambrosia artemisiifolia after reassociation with a coevolved specialist herbivore, and that this increase corresponds with reduced abiotic stress tolerance. Herbivore resistance was higher, but drought tolerance was lower in plants from populations with a longer reassociation history, and this corresponded with changes in phenylpropanoids involved in insect resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. These changes were corroborated by shifts in the expression of underlying biosynthetic genes and plant anti-oxidants. Together, our findings suggest rapid evolution of plant traits after reassociation with coevolved enemies, resulting in genetically based shifts in investment between abiotic and biotic stress responses, providing insights into co-evolution, plant invasion and biological control.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 942-954 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Ecology Letters |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2023 |
Funding
We thank Prof. Heinz Müller-Schärer at the University of Fribourg and Prof. Yan Sun from Huazhong Agricultural University for their suggestions and careful review of our manuscript. We thank three anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments contributed to improving the quality of the manuscript. We also thank Xin Wang, Leyao Zhu, Jingrui Xu, Zhaozhao Chen, Helian Wang and Miaomiao Li from Henan University for help with the data collection and Mengchen Jiang from Henan University for help with the figure drawing. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant (31901230, U21A20190). RMC thanks the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement OIA-1757351 for support. We thank Prof. Heinz Müller‐Schärer at the University of Fribourg and Prof. Yan Sun from Huazhong Agricultural University for their suggestions and careful review of our manuscript. We thank three anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments contributed to improving the quality of the manuscript. We also thank Xin Wang, Leyao Zhu, Jingrui Xu, Zhaozhao Chen, Helian Wang and Miaomiao Li from Henan University for help with the data collection and Mengchen Jiang from Henan University for help with the figure drawing. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant (31901230, U21A20190). RMC thanks the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement OIA‐1757351 for support.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| OIA‐1757351 | |
| National Natural Science Foundation of China | U21A20190, 31901230 |
| Henan University | |
| Huazhong Agricultural University |
Keywords
- Ambrosia artemisiifolia
- Ophraella communa
- antioxidant
- biological control
- biological invasions
- drought stress
- evolution of increased competitive ability
- quantitative defence
- reassociation
- secondary metabolites
- Insecta
- Stress, Physiological
- Plants
- Herbivory/physiology
- Biological Evolution
- Animals