Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Selecting replacements for invasive plants to support frugivores in highly modified sites: A case study focusing on Lantana camara

Selecting replacements for invasive plants to support frugivores in highly modified sites: A case... Summary Invasive plants are regarded as a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. Yet, in some cases, invasive plants now perform important ecological functions. For example, fleshy‐fruited invasive plants provide food that supports indigenous frugivore populations. How can the disparate goals of conservation versus invasive weed control be managed? We suggest using the fruit characteristics of the invasive plant to select replacement indigenous plants that are functionally similar from the perspective of frugivores. These could provide replacement food resources at sites where plants with these characteristics are part of the goal plant community and where such plants would not otherwise regenerate. Replacement plants could also redirect seed dispersal processes to favour indigenous, rather than invasive, plant species. We investigated the utility of this approach by ranking all indigenous fleshy‐fruited plant species from a region using a simple model that scored species based upon measures of fruit phenology, morphology, conspicuousness and accessibility relative to a target invasive species, Lantana (Lantana camara). The model successfully produced high scores for indigenous plant species that were used by more of the frugivores of Lantana than a random selection of plants, suggesting that this approach warrants further investigation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecological Management & Restoration Wiley

Selecting replacements for invasive plants to support frugivores in highly modified sites: A case study focusing on Lantana camara

Download PDF
7 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/selecting-replacements-for-invasive-plants-to-support-frugivores-in-UXohir0w0o

References (24)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1442-7001
eISSN
1442-8903
DOI
10.1111/j.1442-8903.2006.00309.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Summary Invasive plants are regarded as a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. Yet, in some cases, invasive plants now perform important ecological functions. For example, fleshy‐fruited invasive plants provide food that supports indigenous frugivore populations. How can the disparate goals of conservation versus invasive weed control be managed? We suggest using the fruit characteristics of the invasive plant to select replacement indigenous plants that are functionally similar from the perspective of frugivores. These could provide replacement food resources at sites where plants with these characteristics are part of the goal plant community and where such plants would not otherwise regenerate. Replacement plants could also redirect seed dispersal processes to favour indigenous, rather than invasive, plant species. We investigated the utility of this approach by ranking all indigenous fleshy‐fruited plant species from a region using a simple model that scored species based upon measures of fruit phenology, morphology, conspicuousness and accessibility relative to a target invasive species, Lantana (Lantana camara). The model successfully produced high scores for indigenous plant species that were used by more of the frugivores of Lantana than a random selection of plants, suggesting that this approach warrants further investigation.

Journal

Ecological Management & Restoration – Wiley

Published: Dec 1, 2006

There are no references for this article.