Running off the road: roadside non-native plants invading mountain vegetation

McDougall, Keith L.; Lembrechts, Jonas J.; Rew, Lisa J.; Haider, Sylvia; Cavieres, Lohengrin A.; Kueffer, Christoph; Milbau, Ann; Naylor, Bridgett J.; Núñez, Martín A.; Pauchard, Aníbal; Seipel, Timothy; Speziale, Karina L.; Wright, Genevieve; Alexander, Jake M.

doi:10.1007/s10530-018-1787-z

Cited by 76 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…In the mountain and lowland regions of Nepal, newly built roads destabilize slopes and trigger landslides, creating bare ground suitable for colonization by the IAPs (Lembrechts et al, ; Lennartz, ). Roads play an important role in the spread of alien species by facilitating dispersal pathways and by providing disturbed sites for percolation from roadsides into the natural adjacent vegetation (McDougall et al, 2018). With tourism industry predicted to be grown in the future, human mobility, trade and transport will increase significantly.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change amplifies plant invasion hotspots in Nepal

Shrestha

2019

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim: Climate change has increased the risk of biological invasions, particularly by increasing the climatically suitable regions for invasive alien species. The distribution of many native and invasive species has been predicted to change under future climate.We performed species distribution modelling of invasive alien plants (IAPs) to identify hotspots under current and future climate scenarios in Nepal, a country ranked among the most vulnerable countries to biological invasions and climate change in the world. Location: Nepal.Methods: We predicted climatically suitable niches of 24 out of the total 26 reported IAPs in Nepal under current and future climate (2050 for RCP 6.0) using an ensemble of species distribution models. We also conducted hotspot analysis to highlight the geographic hotspots for IAPs in different climatic zones, land cover, ecoregions, physiography and federal states.Results: Under future climate, climatically suitable regions for 75% of IAPs will expand in contrast to a contraction of the climatically suitable regions for the remaining 25% of the IAPs. A high proportion of the modelled suitable niches of IAPs occurred on agricultural lands followed by forests. In aggregation, both extent and intensity (invasion hotspots) of the climatically suitable regions for IAPs will increase in Nepal under future climate scenarios. The invasion hotspots will expand towards the highelevation mountainous regions. In these regions, land use is rapidly transforming due to the development of infrastructure and expansion of tourism and trade. Main conclusions: Negative impacts on livelihood, biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as economic loss caused by IAPs in the future, may be amplified if preventive and control measures are not immediately initiated. Therefore, the management of IAPs in Nepal should account for the vulnerability of climate change-induced biological invasions into new areas, primarily in the mountains. K E Y W O R D S biological invasions, climate change, Himalaya, invasive species management, species distribution modelling

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change amplifies plant invasion hotspots in Nepal

Shrestha

2019

Diversity and Distributions

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“…Frequently disturbed communities that are poor in native species are expected to be more vulnerable to invasions (Pauchard et al, ; Sandoya et al, ). Reduced biomass and plant cover can positively influence species richness of exotics (McDougall et al, ), as competition with the re‐growing native vegetation in the disturbed plots is lower than in non‐disturbed ones (Lembrechts et al, ). However, we found only a weak positive effect of disturbance on exotic‐species richness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Exotic species often originate from warm, lowland regions, and are therefore expected to have a restricted elevational range in the invaded temperate mountain areas (Pyšek, Sádlo, Mandák, & Jarošík, 2003). However, a subset of exotic plants can be generalists with a wide thermal breadth that are potentially able to establish and spread also at high elevations when both colonization opportunities and propagules are available (Pauchard et al, 2009;Alexander et al, 2011;Tecco et al, 2016;McDougall et al, 2018).…”

Section: Corcos Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Soil disturbance facilitates plant invasions by providing colonization opportunities that allow the establishment of exotic species by seeds (Latzel, Mihulka, & Klimešová, 2008;Milbau, Shevtsova, Osler, Mooshammer, & Graae, 2013;McDougall et al, 2018;Seipel et al, 2018). Disturbance also reduces total plant biomass, facilitating exotic plants because of reduced competition with natives for light and resources .…”

Section: Corcos Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Soil disturbance plays an important role in determining site invasibility (Chytrý et al, ; Boscutti, Sigura, Simone, & Marini, ; Seipel, Rew, Taylor, Maxwell, & Lehnhoff, ), and, independently of temperature, disturbed areas are more prone to establishment of exotic species than natural habitats (Parendes & Jones, ; Lembrechts et al, ; Sandoya et al, ; Haider et al, ). Soil disturbance facilitates plant invasions by providing colonization opportunities that allow the establishment of exotic species by seeds (Latzel, Mihulka, & Klimešová, ; Milbau, Shevtsova, Osler, Mooshammer, & Graae, ; McDougall et al, ; Seipel et al, ). Disturbance also reduces total plant biomass, facilitating exotic plants because of reduced competition with natives for light and resources (Lembrechts et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Establishment dynamics of native and exotic plants after disturbance along roadsides

Corcos

Nascimbene

Campesan

et al. 2020

Applied Vegetation Science

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Questions How does small‐scale soil disturbance influence establishment dynamics of native and exotic species along roadsides? Does soil disturbance provide potential opportunities to exotic invasions along elevational gradients? Does the established plant community after disturbance reflect the surrounding vegetation? Location Prealps, Italy. Methods To disentangle the role of elevation and soil disturbance in promoting exotic invasions, we performed a manipulative experiment along 12 roads spanning an elevational gradient of ca. 1,200 m. Additionally, we sampled species richness of native and exotic plants in the surroundings of the experimental plots. Results Soil disturbance reduced species richness of native plants, total plant biomass and vegetation cover compared to the undisturbed plots. The decrease in species richness of natives and plant biomass was stronger at higher than lower elevations, suggesting higher colonization opportunities for exotics. However, exotic species richness did not increase with disturbance, probably due to a low propagule and colonization pressure. We observed strong species replacement between control and disturbed plots, indicating that plant communities established after disturbance were not a subset of species communities already occurring in the surrounding vegetation. Conclusions With increasing elevation, disturbance had a stronger negative effect on native than on exotic species. Higher elevations, hitherto considered to have low invasibility, may provide new potential colonization opportunities for exotics but only if disturbance is coupled with an increased propagule pressure. Disturbance along roadsides promoted the establishment of species that did not occur in the surrounding vegetation.

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Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

Haider

Lembrechts

McDougall

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountains worldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is for plant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncratic and difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thus a need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountain regions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and non‐native plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitive and standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non‐native species distributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects of climate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveys consist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicate roads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountain road into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time already generated some salient results, and revealed region‐specific elevational patterns of native plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in non‐native species richness. Non‐native plants were also more abundant directly adjacent to road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions into mountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting results can be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in more mountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of how global change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy in mountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented.

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Running off the road: roadside non-native plants invading mountain vegetation

Abstract: Made available through Montana State University's ScholarWorks scholarworks.montana.edu Running off the road: roadside non-native plants invading mountain vegetation

Cited by 76 publications

References 53 publications

Climate change amplifies plant invasion hotspots in Nepal

Climate change amplifies plant invasion hotspots in Nepal

Establishment dynamics of native and exotic plants after disturbance along roadsides

Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

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