Elizabeth Bowman

and 5 more

Plants host diverse assemblages of fungi on their foliar tissues, both in internal compartments and on exterior surfaces. When plant distributions shift, they can move with their fungal associates (i.e. co-introduction) or acquire new associates present in the novel environment (host-jumping). The fungal communities that plants acquire influence a plant’s ability to establish and spread in this new environment. Here, we aimed to assess whether invasive Cenchrus ciliaris hosts similar groups of fungi in its native and introduced ranges and to evaluate community overlap of fungi associated with foliar tissue of C. ciliaris and native and non-native plants within the introduced range. In the introduced range, C. ciliaris associated with a majority of novel OTUs, although 3.2% of OTUs were common to both ranges. Of these shared OTU, 77.6% were found on co-occurring natives and non-natives in the introduced range, whereas 22.4% were completely unique to C. ciliaris indicating a possible co-introduction. Fungal communities within the introduced range contain a higher proportion of generalist symbionts and an increase in heterogeneity of foliar communities than in its native range. Within the introduced range, host phylogenetic distance explained more variation in foliar communities than native status. Our findings provide evidence that non-natives acquire fungi opportunistically from their environment, although host and environmental filtering is present suggesting that successful invasive plants may be able to limit the effect of poor symbionts and select for better ones. Future experimental work will be needed to confirm the occurrence of host selection and identify its mechanisms.

Sana Ghouri

and 9 more

Rationale: Many insect species undertake multi-generational migrations in the Afro-tropical and Palearctic ranges, and understanding their migratory connectivity remains challenging due to their small size, short life span and large population sizes. Hydrogen isotope ( δ 2H) can be used to reconstruct the movement of dispersing or migrating insects, but applying δ 2H for provenance requires a robust isotope baseline map (i.e., isoscape) for the Afro-Palearctic. Methods: We analysed the δ 2H in the wings ( δ 2H wing) of 142 resident butterflies from 56 sites across the Afro-Palearctic. The δ 2H wing values were compared to the predicted local growing-season precipitation δ 2H values ( δ 2H GSP) using a linear regression model to develop an insect wing δ 2H isoscape. We used multivariate linear mixed models and high-resolution and time-specific remote sensing climate and environmental data to explore the controls of the residual δ 2H wing variability. Results: A strong linear relationship was found between δ 2H wing and δ 2H GSP values (r 2=0.53). The resulting isoscape showed strong patterns across the Palearctic but limited variation and high uncertainty for the Afro-tropics. Positive residuals of this relationship were correlated with dry conditions for the month preceding sampling whereas negative residuals were correlated with more wet days for the month preceding sampling. High intra-site δ 2H wing variance was associated with lower relative humidity for the month preceding sampling and higher elevation. Conclusion: The δ 2H wing isoscape is applicable to trace butterflies, moths and other terrestrial herbivorous insects that migrate across the Afro-Palearctic range but has limited geolocation potential in the Afro-tropics. The spatial analysis of uncertainty using high-resolution climatic data demonstrated that many African regions with highly variable evaporation rates and relative humidity have δ 2H wing values that are less related to δ 2H GSP values. Increasing geolocation precision will require new modeling approaches using more time-specific environmental data and/or independent geolocation tools.