Comparison of the performance of native and invasive plants of Senecio vulgairs L.

According to the Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability (EICA) hypothesis and Enemy Release Hypothesis (ERH), comparing the plants from the same species, individuals from the invasive range will outperform those from the native range. However, not all recent studies support the prediction of these two hypotheses. In this study, we sought to test the prediction by comparing the performance of common groundsel ( Senecio vulgaris ) taken from native (Europe) and invasive (China) ranges. Those plants were grown in a greenhouse and in a common garden, and harvested with various vegetative and reproductive traits measured. We found that although the plants grown in the common garden grew and reproduced better than those grown in the greenhouse, the invasive plants outperformed the native plants in relation to most vegetation parameters (except plant height) and reproduction in both experiments; and generally, the invasive plants allocated more proportion of biomass to root than the native plants. However, the proportion of biomass allocated to reproductive organ and relative dry matter content were the same between the native and invasive plants, no matter among the plants grown in the greenhouse or in the common garden. Our study partially supported the predictions of the EICA and ERH and indicated that evolution might have happened to S. vulgaris invasive to China.