The invasive potential of a hybrid species: insights from soil chemical properties and soil microbial communities

Aims Natural hybridization between invasive and native species, as a form of adaptive evolution, threatens biodiversity worldwide. However, the potential invasive mechanisms of hybrids remain essentially unexplored, especially insights from soil chemical properties and soil microbial communities. Methods In a field experiment, soil microbial community, potassium-solubilizing bacteria, phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria, enzyme activities, and light-saturated photosynthetic rate were measured in invasive Sphagneticola trilobata and its hybrid with native Sphagneticola calendulacea in 2 years. Important Findings In general, soil dissolved organic carbon and the biomass of phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria were significantly higher under the hybrid treatment than S. trilobata and S. calendulacea. However, there were no significant differences in acid phosphatase, total PLFAs, bacterial PLFAs, fungi PLFAs, cellulase, and urase in these treatments. The hybrids had significantly higher light-saturated photosynthetic rate, photosynthetic nitrogen-, phosphorus-, potassium- use efficiencies than the invasive S. trilobata, but no significant difference with S. calendulacea. The total biomass and root biomass of hybrids were higher than S. calendulacea. Our results indicate that the hybrids species have a higher invasive potential than S. calendulacea, which may aggravate the local extinction of S. calendulacea in the future.