The annual plant Impatiens glandulifera (Himalayan balsam) is the most widespread invasive non‐native weed in the British Isles. Manual control is widely used, but is costly and laborious. Recently, biological control using the rust fungus Puccinia komarovii var. glanduliferae has been trialled. We designed an experiment to assess the impact of these control methods on invertebrate communities in relation to unmanaged and uninvaded habitats, and to determine whether mycorrhizal inoculation aided post‐control recovery of these communities. Sixty invaded and twenty uninvaded field soil blocks were transplanted to the experiment site, where a mycorrhizal inoculum was added to half of all blocks. Biological and mechanical control treatments were applied to twenty invaded blocks independently; the twenty remaining invaded blocks were left intact. Above‐ and belowground invertebrate samples were collected from the blocks at the end of the growing season. Overall, aboveground invertebrate abundance increased with the removal of I. glandulifera, and several groups showed signs of recovery within one growing season. The effect of mechanical control was more variable in belowground invertebrates. Biological control did not affect aboveground invertebrate abundance but resulted in large increases in populations of belowground Collembola. Our experiment demonstrates that mechanical removal of I. glandulifera can cause rapid increases in invertebrate abundance and that its biological control with P. komarovii var. glanduliferae also has the potential to benefit native invertebrate communities.

中文翻译：

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凤仙花控制对地上和地下无脊椎动物群落的快速影响

一年生的Impatiens glandulifera（喜马拉雅香脂）是不列颠群岛上最广泛传播的非本地杂草。手动控制被广泛使用，但是成本高且费力。最近，使用锈菌Puccinia komarovii var进行生物防治。腺科已试用。我们设计了一个实验，以评估这些控制方法对无管理和无侵害栖息地的无脊椎动物群落的影响，并确定菌根接种是否有助于这些群落的控制后恢复。将六十个入侵的和二十个未入侵的田间土壤块移植到实验地点，在那里将菌根接种物添加到所有块的一半。生物和机械控制处理分别应用于二十个被侵袭的块。剩下的二十个被入侵的方块完好无损。在生长季节结束时从地块中收集地上和地下的无脊椎动物样品。总体而言，去除I. glandulifera会增加地上无脊椎动物的丰度，几组在一个生长季节内显示出恢复的迹象。机械控制的作用在地下无脊椎动物中变化更大。生物控制不会影响地上无脊椎动物的丰度，但会导致地下Collembola种群的大量增加。我们的实验表明，机械去除I. glandulifera会导致无脊椎动物丰度迅速增加，并且其对P. komarovii var的生物控制。腺科也有可能造福于当地的无脊椎动物社区。