DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0p2ngf20j
title: Data from: Biomass responses of widely and less-widely naturalized alien plants to artificial light at night

description: Artificial light at night has rapidly increased during the last century,
 and could potentially affect many ecological processes, from individuals
 via communities to entire ecosystems. Recent research has shown that
 artificial light at night may not only affect the behavior of animals but
 also growth of plants and vegetation composition. However, it is not known
 yet whether artificial light at night may also affect other global change
 components such as plant invasions.   Here, we tested how
 naturalized alien plants respond to artificial light at night, and
 particularly whether widely naturalized species differ from less-widely
 naturalized species in their response to artificial light at night. We
 grew nine taxonomically related pairs of widely naturalized and
 less-widely naturalized species alone and in competition, with native
 plants with and without artificial light at night. We found that in the
 competition treatment, artificial light at night significantly increased
 the total biomass production per pot, but not the biomass ratio between
 the naturalized alien plants and the native competitors. Interestingly,
 although the less-widely naturalized species produced overall
 significantly less biomass than the widely naturalized species, there was
 a trend that the less-widely naturalized species increased their biomass
 more strongly in response to artificial light at night than the widely
 naturalized species did (P = 0.07). Synthesis. Our study shows that
 although widely naturalized plants produce more biomass than less-widely
 naturalized plants across different environmental conditions, they took
 less advantage of artificial light at night. This suggests that artificial
 light at night might lead to increased spread of currently less-widely
 naturalized species, at least when artificial light at night continues to
 increase.
description: All data were collected from a greenhouse experiment.
description: In the dataset, NA represents missing values
 Light_plot    the plot number of the light treatment<br>
 Identity    species ID<br> Species    species name of the
 target<br> Family    the Family of target species<br> Status  
  <br> Competition    Yes represents with competition, No represents
 growing alone<br> Light_treatment    Ambient represents dark, light
 represents with light treatment<br> Initial_eaf_area_mm2    unit
 mm2<br> Initial_height_mm    unit mm<br> Target_biomass_g  
  unit g<br> Biomass_Prunella_vulgaris_g    unit g<br>
 Biomass_Dactylis_glomerata_g    unit g<br>
 Biomass_Leucanthemum_ircutianum_g    unit g<br>
 Biomass_Anthoxanthum_odoratum_g    unit g<br>
 Biomass_Plantago_lanceolata_g    unit g<br>
 Biomass_Poa_pratensis_g    unit g<br> Other_species_biomass_g  
  species that we did not transplant<br> Biomass_Native_community_g  
  unit g<br> Total_biomass_per_pot_g    unit g, biomass of target
 plus biomass of native community<br> Biomass_proportion_of_target  
   biomass of target / total biomass per pot<br>
 Native_Community_Normal    0 represents some native species died or more
 species occure which we did not transplant<br> Target_Mortality    0
 represents the target species live, 1 represents the target species
 died