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Research in community invasibiliy has focused on biotic and abiotic factors that influence the establishment of invasive species and whether such factors vary with spatial scale. Here, we investigate the role of both biotic and abiotic factors associated with the initial establishment of Lespedeza cuneata (L. cuneata) and its abundance at three spatial scales: neighborhoods (9-m2 plots), communities (50-m2 transect) and old fields (5,000–70,000 m2). We asked: (1) Do resource availability and community structure affect the establishment of L. cuneata?, and (2) Are resource availability and community structure associated with patterns of L. cuneata abundance from neighborhood scales to old-field scales? To investigate the first question, we manipulated soil nitrogen (N) availability at three levels in an existing old-field community and tracked emergence and persistence of L. cuneata seedlings, as well as total plant biomass of the community, availability of light, and soil moisture content. To address the second question, we performed surveys in which we estimated L. cuneata foliar cover at community scales (50-m2 belt transects) and old-field scales (total area of 28 ha), and assessed the same biotic and abiotic variables as in the field experiment. The experiment revealed that establishment and persistence by L. cuneata seedlings were 15× and 5× lower in N-added plots than in N-reduced plots. Total plant community biomass was 30% greater in N-added plots than in N-reduced plots. Conversely, light and soil moisture were 60 and 20% lower in N-added plots than in N-reduced plots. Surveys of old fields indicated that community biomass was positively associated with L. cuneata cover at old-field scales likely resulting from greater soil N input from nitrogen fixation in fields with greater L. cuneata cover. In sum, these results indicate that biotic factors associated with establishment of a Rank 1 invasive plant species at the community scale are also related to its distribution at the old-field scale, but the direction of such associations changed across scales.

Species interactions and their indirect effects on the availability and distribution of resources have been considered strong determinants of community structure in many different ecological systems. In deciduous forests, the presence of overstory trees and shrubs creates a shifting mosaic of resources for understory plants, with implications for their distribution and abundance. Determination of the ultimate resource constraints on understory vegetation may aid management of these systems that have become increasingly susceptible to invasions by non-native plants. Microstegium vimineum (Japanese grass) is an invasive annual grass that has spread rapidly throughout the understory of forests across the eastern United States since it was first observed in Tennessee in 1919. M. vimineum occurs as extensive, dense patches in the understory of eastern deciduous forests, yet these patches often exhibit sharp boundaries and distinct gaps in cover. One example of this distributional pattern was observed relative to the native midstory tree Asimina triloba (pawpaw), whereby dense M. vimineum cover stopped abruptly at the drip line of the A. triloba patch and was absent beneath the A. triloba canopy. We conducted field and greenhouse experiments to test several hypotheses regarding the causes of this observed pattern of M. vimineum distribution, including allelopathy, seed dispersal, light limitations, and soil moisture, texture, and nutrient content. We concluded that light reduction by the A. triloba canopy was the environmental constraint that prevented establishment of M. vimineum beneath this tree. Whereas overstory tree canopy apparently facilitates the establishment of this shade-tolerant grass, the interaction of overstory canopy with midstory canopy interferes with M. vimineum by reducing the availability of sunflecks at the ground layer. It is likely that other midstory species influence the distribution and abundance of other herb-layer species, with implications for management of understory invasive plant species.