Incorporation of an invasive plant into a native insect herbivore food web

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 4; p. e1954
• Main Authors: Schilthuizen, Menno, Santos Pimenta, Lúcia P, Lammers, Youri, Steenbergen, Peter J, Flohil, Marco, Beveridge, Nils G P, van Duijn, Pieter T, Meulblok, Marjolein M, Sosef, Nils, van de Ven, Robin, Werring, Ralf, Beentjes, Kevin K, Meijer, Kim, Vos, Rutger A, Vrieling, Klaas, Gravendeel, Barbara, Choi, Young, Verpoorte, Robert, Smit, Chris, Beukeboom, Leo W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States PeerJ. Ltd 10.05.2016; PeerJ Inc
• Subjects: Adaptation; Ecology; Entomology; Environmental Sciences; Evolutionary Studies; Exotic plants; Insect herbivores; Plant Science; Prunus serotina; Secondary metabolites; Secondary metabolites; Prunus serotina; Exotic plants; Insect herbivores; Adaptation
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.1954

The integration of invasive species into native food webs represent multifarious dynamics of ecological and evolutionary processes. We document incorporation of Prunus serotina (black cherry) into native insect food webs. We find that P. serotina harbours a herbivore community less dense but more diverse than its native relative, P. padus (bird cherry), with similar proportions of specialists and generalists. While herbivory on P. padus remained stable over the past century, that on P. serotina gradually doubled. We show that P. serotina may have evolved changes in investment in cyanogenic glycosides compared with its native range. In the leaf beetle Gonioctena quinquepunctata, recently shifted from native Sorbus aucuparia to P. serotina, we find divergent host preferences on Sorbus- versus Prunus-derived populations, and weak host-specific differentiation among 380 individuals genotyped for 119 SNP loci. We conclude that evolutionary processes may generate a specialized herbivore community on an invasive plant, allowing prognoses of reduced invasiveness over time. On the basis of the results presented here, we would like to caution that manual control might have the adverse effect of a slowing down of processes of adaptation, and a delay in the decline of the invasive character of P. serotina.