Figure 17.19 Disrupting a mutualism with garlic mustard. When researchers grew three species of trees in soils from forests with and without garlic mustard, they found that soils from forests with garlic mustard caused (a) much smaller increases in biomass and (b) little or no colonization by mycorrhizal fungi. Error bars are standard errors.

Data from K. A. Stinson et al., Invasive plant suppresses the growth of native tree seedlings by disrupting belowground mutualisms, PLOS Biology 4 (2006): 727–731.