To resist establishment by an invasive plant, a community may require one or more species functionally similar to the invader in their resource acquisition pattern. In this study, communities consisting of native winter annual forbs, non-native annual grasses, native perennials, or a combination of the two native communities were established with and without Centaurea solstitialis to determine ...

Replacement of perennial grasses with non-native annual grasses in California’s Central Valley grasslands and foothills has increased deep soil water availability. Yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis), a deep-rooted invasive thistle, can use this water to invade annual grasslands. Native perennial bunchgrasses, such as Purple needlegrass (Nassella pulchra), also use deep soil water, so t...

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Proving allelopathic chemical interference is a daunting endeavor, in that production and movement of a phytotoxin from a donor plant to a receiving plant must be demonstrated in the substrate in which the plants grow, which is usually a complex soil matrix. The soil levels or soil flux levels of the compound generated by the donor must be proven to be sufficient to adversely affect the receivi...

A Russian knapweed (Acroptilon repens) shoot culture system, initiated from shoot tip culture, was used to generate a source of host plant tissue for the rearing of the nematode Subanguina picridis, a biocontrol agent for Russian knapweed. Young shoots growing on solid B5G medium in petri dishes developed galls on leaves, petioles, and shoot tips 7 days after release of 50 nematodes onto the su...

BACKGROUND Agri-environment schemes play an increasingly important role for the conservation of rare plants in intensively managed agricultural landscapes. However, little is known about their effects on gene flow via pollen dispersal between populations of these species. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In a 2-year experiment, we observed effective pollen dispersal from source populations of C...