Impact of invasive plants in Mediterranean habitats: disentangling the effects of characteristics of invaders and recipient communities

While the effects of an invasive alien plant that has become dominant in a community may seem obvious, there are few studies that attempt to understand how impacts vary according to the characteristics of invaders and recipient communities. For this purpose, the vegetation of invaded and non-invaded...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Biological invasions Vol. 16; no. 8; pp. 1639 - 1658
Main Authors:	Fried, G, Laitung, B, Pierre, C, Chagué, N, Panetta, F. D
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Cham Springer-Verlag 01-08-2014 Springer International Publishing Springer Springer Nature B.V Springer Verlag
Subjects:	Ambrosia artemisiifolia Amorpha fruticosa Animal and plant ecology Animal, plant and microbial ecology annuals Applied ecology Biodiversity Biological and medical sciences Biomedical and Life Sciences Carpobrotus Community ecology Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife Developmental Biology Dominant species Ecology Environmental Sciences Freshwater & Marine Ecology Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General aspects Habitats Indigenous species introduced plants Invasive plants Invasive species Life Sciences managers Nonnative species Original Paper Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking Phyla canescens Plant ecology Plant Sciences population dynamics prediction Risk assessment shade tolerance Species composition Species diversity Synecology Vegetal Biology Vegetation ANE, Europe Europe, Mediterranean Region Competition Biodiversity Biotic resistance Risk assessment Traits Community Risk analysis Invasive species Plant Sensitivity resistance Mediterranean region Environmental monitoring Environmental protection
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Summary:	While the effects of an invasive alien plant that has become dominant in a community may seem obvious, there are few studies that attempt to understand how impacts vary according to the characteristics of invaders and recipient communities. For this purpose, the vegetation of invaded and non-invaded plots was sampled for eight different invasive species in a variety of habitats within the French continental Mediterranean region. Most of the observed impact variation was species-specific, with greater effects on community-level metrics found for Carpobrotus spp. and Reynoutria × bohemica and lower effects for Amorpha fruticosa, Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Phyla filiformis. Some trends were consistent with competition-driven processes, with higher impact found in the presence of rhizomatous and creeping perennial invasive species compared to annuals, or in habitats with sparse vegetation. The importance of community characteristics such as the cover of the invasive plant or the differences in cover between the invader and the native dominant species confirmed previous results obtained in Central Europe. Therefore, such variables, easy to measure and with a generic value, could be profitably integrated into risk assessment methods to improve the prediction of the most threatened habitats. Beyond the overall decline in species diversity, the presence of some invasive species was associated with significant changes in species composition, with a filtering toward more shade-tolerant and nitrophilous ruderal species. Managers should consider replacement of resident species by species with different ecological preferences together with simple community-level metrics, to decide whether management is justified.
Bibliography:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0597-6 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1387-3547 1573-1464
DOI:	10.1007/s10530-013-0597-6