PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 86: Invasive Species VII: Forests.
Presiding: C Huebner
Thursday, August 7. 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 204.
The effects of Acer platanoides on the community and ecosystem dynamics of a natural forest.
Fang, Wei*,1, 1 State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York
ABSTRACT- The role of a single species, Norway maple (Acer platanoides), on the community and ecosystem dynamics of a natural forest was evaluated in a field manipulative experiment. Norway maple is an exotic tree species that is aggressively invading the interior of natural mesic forests in the northeastern US and is negatively associated with the diversity of native species in forest understory. I hypothesized that Norway maple changed the community structure either through its superior competitive abilities for resources aboveground and/or belowground or through certain novel ecosystem functions of litter or other manipulation of soil properties. Seedlings of 3 native and 3 exotic woody species were transplanted under both Norway maple adults and its native congener A. rubrum. The performance of these transplanted seedlings indicated competitive hierarchy among these species under various combinations of experimental manipulations and how such inter-specific interactions translated into community dynamics. A series of ecosystem measurements tested the alternative hypothesis and linked the role of single species to the dynamics of the whole ecosystem. The results of the experiment suggested that Norway maple was a superior aboveground competitor for light, and was also associated with the alteration of soil ecosystem properties without being a superior belowground competitor. The competitive hierarchy among the understory species was altered by the invasion of Norway maple. The impacts of an invasive species at the community level and the ecosystem level were interrelated and inextricable.
Key words: invasion, ecosystem effect, Acer platanoides, community effect