Effects of soil disturbance and disease on the growth and reproduction of Lolium perenne [Poaceae] introduced to semi-natural grassland

We performed manipulative field experiments to investigate the effects of soil disturbance and exposure to a fungal plant pathogen, Puccinia coronata (Corda), on the establishment and spread of two introduced, cultivated genotypes of perennial ryegrass, Lolium perenne (L.). The two cultivars of L. perenne with different levels of susceptibility to P. coronata were introduced to grassland sites to investigate whether a plant cultivar selected to resist a pathogen shows better establishment in semi-natural plant communities than a susceptible cultivar. At two sites where L. perenne was already present, the addition of L. perenne seeds had no significant effect on the shoot biomass of the species, indicating that these populations were not seed limited. Exposure to the pathogen resulted in disease, and infected L. perenne populations showed increased shoot biomass over the course of the 3 year experiment and at harvest the final year, but no effect on seed production. Reproductive allocation was not affected by disease exposure in disturbed plots, but decreased in the presence of disease in undisturbed plots. The increased biomass observed in the semi-natural plant communities when exposed to the pathogen contrasts with the reduced biomass observed in garden experiments when the two cultivars of L. perenne were exposed to pathogen attack. The surprising positive effect of P. coronata on biomass in semi-natural communities indicates that processes here are more complex than in more intensively managed production systems.