Non‐native flora of Italy: Species distribution and threats

Abstract

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The response of plant community diversity to alien invasion: evidence from a sand dune time series

“…Conversely, woody species are small in number and, although referred to as ''invasive species'' (e.g. S. inaequidens or A. fruticosa) at the national level (Celesti-Grapow et al 2009, 2010a, they do not seem to have a particular adaptive strategy which enables them to establish a stable population in sand dune habitats. Thus, the study confirms that species-identity, in particular growth forms, and the strategy they use substantially affect invasion outcome.…”

“…1 Year of the record, converted to one of the four time steps (referred to as 1950s, 1980s, 2000s, and 2011 hereafter); 2 Cumulative species pool and level of invasion; the cumulative species pool was calculated as the total number of species, both native and alien, recorded within each vegetation type in each time step, whereas the level of invasion corresponds to the percentage of alien species compared with the cumulative species pool (Chytrý et al 2005); 3 Average number of species and mean proportion of alien and native focal species per plot; alien species were classified in accordance with Celesti-Grapow et al (2009, 2010a and Prieto et al (2011) for the genus Spartina; definitions of ''casual'', ''naturalized'', or ''invasive'' are in accordance with Rejmánek et al (2005); native focal species, that is the key species pivotal to habitat structure and function, were chosen in accordance with the ''Italian Interpretation Manual of the 92/43/EEC Directive Habitats'' (Biondi et al 2009;Prisco et al (2012); 4 Mean Shannon Diversity Index (H 0 ) and mean Evenness Index (J) per plot; the Evenness index J was calculated as H 0 /ln S, where H 0 is the Shannon diversity index and S the number of species; for calculation of H 0 (Magurran 1988), the BraunBlanquet scale values were previously transformed to percentage cover as follows: r = 0.1 %; ? = 1.0 %; 1 = 2.5 %; 2 = 15.0 %; 3 = 37.5 %; 4 = 62.5 %; 5 = 87.5 %.…”

Guests and gatecrashers in a New World’s banquet: Old World plant species introduced from the Mediterranean Basin enriched the flora of grasslands and croplands in the Pampas of Argentina

“…Species from two families only occurred in grasslands (Boraginaceae, Geraniaceae), while six families were only surveyed in croplands (Convolvulaceae, Fumariaceae, Plantaginaceae, Polygonaceae, Urticaceae, Violaceae, Table 2). Many of these families are scarcely represented in the native flora of the Pampa grasslands (Cabrera & Zardini 1978). Conversely, species from Papaveraceae were not surveyed in either grasslands or croplands (Poggio & Mollard 2010), even though many species belonging to this family has been recognised as weeds and highly invasive plants (Pysek 1998;Weber & Gut 2005).…”

“…in the low sierras on the southwest. The northern limit is set by a xerophytic forest known as 'espinal', whereas the region is bounded westward by a shrub land named 'monte' (Cabrera 1976). Pristine vegetation corresponded to mesic tussock grasslands dominated by a rich mixture of C3 and C4 grass species (Parodi, 1930(Parodi, , 1947Burkart & al.…”

Growth disturbance of extracts from several crops straw (residue) on Ageratina adenophora and biological-control implications in hazardous weed invasion for eco-restoration

“…It is well known that biological invasion had direct impacts on and threats against native species survival and reproduction (Stinson et al, 2006;Kasenene, 2007;Mangla et al, 2008), regional biodiversity protection (Cui et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2010;Zhou et al, 2009a,b), ecological safety maintenance Li et al, 2013Li et al, , 2009, and environment health and development (Balasubramanian et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013;Zhou et al, 2009a,b), which has become a global ecological environment issue (Celesti-Grapow et al, 2010;Li et al, 2009;Pritekel et al, 2006). How to effectively control and scientifically manage the invasive species has become an important issue and a great challenge for biologists and environment protectionist.…”