Identifying thresholds in the impacts of an invasive groundcover on native vegetation.

ABSTRACT: Impacts of invasive species are often difficult to quantify, meaning that many invaders are prioritised for management without robust, contextual evidence of impact. Most impact studies for invasive plants compare heavily invaded with non-invaded sites, revealing little about abundance-impact relationships. We examined effects of increasing cover and volume of the non-native herbaceous groundcover Tradescantia fluminensis on a temperate rainforest community of southern Australia. We hypothesised that there would be critical thresholds in T. fluminensis abundance, below which the native plant community would not be significantly impacted, but above which the community's condition would degrade markedly. We modelled the abundance-impact relationship from 83 plots that varied in T. fluminensi

SUBMITTER: O'Loughlin LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8520009 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature