Informace o publikaci
Levels of invasion in European dwarf shrub and scrub vegetation
| Autoři | |
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| Rok publikování | 2022 |
| Druh | Konferenční abstrakty |
| Citace | |
| Popis | Human-assisted introduction of alien plant species is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss; therefore, identifying vulnerable habitats and their successful invaders is crucial for risk assessments and alien plant management. The establishment of the vegetation-plot data repositories such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) enabled new studies of invasion levels at the fine-scale resolution of individual habitats across Europe. Our study focused on the European habitats of dwarf-shrub and scrub vegetation (EUNIS habitat group S and a subset of group N). As highly dynamic, heterogeneous vegetation that often forms transitions to other habitat types, shrublands can be important in terms of alien plants’ establishment. We analyzed a geographically stratified dataset of 24,220 shrubland vegetation plots provided by EVA. We compared several measures of neophytes’ invasion levels across i) EUNIS habitats, ii) broad habitat groups and iii) biogeographical regions of Europe. In total, we identified 311 taxa (i.e., 4.8% of all taxa) considered as neophytes in Europe. The most frequent neophytes were Prunus serotina, Robinia pseudoacacia and Vaccinium macrocarpon among woody taxa and Impatiens parviflora, Erigeron canadensis, and Solidago gigantea among herbaceous taxa. The most invaded habitats included lowland scrub vegetation of the Macaronesian region, followed by riparian scrub, Rubus scrub and forest clearings scrub of temperate Europe, and coastal dune scrub of the Atlantic region. The levels of invasion were low in dwarf shrub and scrub vegetation of the Arctic and the Mediterranean region and decreased with the elevation in Alpine regions. This indicates the importance of insularity, frequent disturbances, and resource-rich or resource-fluctuating environments for promoting plant invasions. |
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