Conservation Biology Graduate Program, University of Minnesota, 135 B Skok Hall, 2003 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108, USA.
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 140 Gortner Laboratory, 1479 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108, USA.
Ecol Appl. 2018 Oct;28(7):1818-1829. doi: 10.1002/eap.1772. Epub 2018 Jul 30.
Ecological restoration and revegetation efforts entail the translocation of native plant populations. Risks associated with these efforts include failure of translocated populations to establish or, conversely, such strong establishment that they excessively dominate the recipient community. The role that selective breeding plays in mediating these risks is unclear but of increasing importance as efforts to restore and establish multifunctional grasslands also increase. In a three-year, spatially replicated study, we seeded experimental prairie communities with either domesticated (cultivar) or undomesticated strains of Panicum virgatum (switchgrass), a North American C species under development as a biomass crop. We evaluated the composition, performance, and diversity of the recipient plant communities and compared the performance of cultivar and undomesticated switchgrass in those communities. We found little evidence that switchgrass population source affected community response. Switchgrass cultivars modestly exceeded undomesticated strains with respect to stand establishment, third-year stand density, and aboveground biomass; effect size and significance differed among sites. Our results suggest that including cultivars in ecological restorations and multifunctional grasslands may enhance success of switchgrass establishment with little risk of impairing the composition or diversity of plant communities for up to three years, as reflected in the measures used here. However, the incorporation of undomesticated switchgrass into multifunctional grasslands may enhance landscape-scale genetic variation and mitigate risks associated with gene flow between translocated and local wild switchgrass populations; more research on these dynamics is needed.
生态恢复和植被重建工作需要转移本地植物种群。这些工作相关的风险包括：转移的种群无法建立，或者相反，建立得过于强大，以至于过度主导受纳群落。选择育种在调节这些风险方面的作用尚不清楚，但随着恢复和建立多功能草地的努力增加，其作用变得越来越重要。在一项为期三年、空间复制的研究中，我们用驯化（品种）或未驯化的 Panicum virgatum（柳枝稷）菌株为实验草原群落播种，柳枝稷是一种北美 C 物种，正在开发为生物质作物。我们评估了受纳植物群落的组成、性能和多样性，并比较了品种和未驯化柳枝稷在这些群落中的表现。我们几乎没有证据表明柳枝稷种群来源会影响群落的反应。与未驯化的品系相比，柳枝稷品种在立地建立、第三年的立地密度和地上生物量方面略有优势；各地点的效应大小和显著性不同。我们的研究结果表明，在生态恢复和多功能草地中包含品种可能会增加柳枝稷建立的成功率，而在长达三年的时间内，对植物群落的组成或多样性几乎没有损害的风险，正如这里使用的措施所反映的那样。然而，将未驯化的柳枝稷纳入多功能草地可能会增加景观尺度的遗传变异，并减轻与转移和当地野生柳枝稷种群之间基因流动相关的风险；需要更多关于这些动态的研究。
