The unseen invaders: introduced earthworms as drivers of change in plant communities in North American forests (a meta-analysis).

ABSTRACT: Globally, biological invasions can have strong impacts on biodiversity as well as ecosystem functioning. While less conspicuous than introduced aboveground organisms, introduced belowground organisms may have similarly strong effects. Here, we synthesize for the first time the impacts of introduced earthworms on plant diversity and community composition in North American forests. We conducted a meta-analysis using a total of 645 observations to quantify mean effect sizes of associations between introduced earthworm communities and plant diversity, cover of plant functional groups, and cover of native and non-native plants. We found that plant diversity significantly declined with increasing richness of introduced earthworm ecological groups. While plant species richness or evenness did not

SUBMITTER: Craven D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5324548 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature