scholarly journals CAD/GIS AS A TOOL IN NATIVE PLANT SPECIES CONSERVATION

HortScience ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 273B-273
Author(s):  
D.L. Creech ◽  
D. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Plant Communities ◽  
Community Dynamics ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Gis Technology ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Habitat Monitoring

Texas is botanically diverse with approximately 5500 native plants identified: east Texas contains about 40% of the total. While most species are stable, many are classified as rare, threatened, vulnerable, or endangered. Databases for east Texas plant communities and vegetative analyses are numerous. However, they are not yet integrated into easy-to-sort-and-query computer files. Computer-Assisted Drafting (CAD) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology offers powerful applications to the storage, management, and spatial analysis of species inventories, plant community dynamics, and long-term habitat monitoring. At SFASU, the College of Forestry's GIS Center is being utilized to develop comprehensive east Texas resource inventories on a ten-station HP Apollo/ArcInfo platform. In the horticulture program, a twenty-station PC/AutoCad teaching laboratory is being used to create layered maps of the SFASU Arboretum, the on-campus landscape and off-campus plant communities. The integration of CAD and GIS projects through a DXF format takes advantage of the attributes of both technologies.

Urban conservation gardening in the decade of restoration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingmar Staude ◽  
Josiane Segar ◽  
Corey Thomas Callaghan ◽  
Emma Ladouceur ◽  
Jasper Meya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Nature Protection ◽  
Urban Conservation ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Native Seed ◽  
Conservation Gardening

Global commitments to species conservation have failed to halt systematic widespread declines in plant species. Current policy interventions, such as protected areas and legal species legislation, remain insufficient, and there is an urgent need to engage novel approaches and actors in conservation. Here, we propose that urban conservation gardening, namely the cultivation of declining native plant species in public and private green spaces, can be one such approach. Conservation gardening can address key (a)biotic drivers of species decline, act as a critical dispersal pathway and increase the occupancy of declining native species. We identify policy mechanisms to upscale conservation gardening to a mainstream activity by reforming the existing horticultural market into an innovative nature protection instrument. This involves incentivizing the integration of the native seed sector, leveraging existing certification and labelling schemes, promoting consumer access, as well as building citizen-science projects to foster public engagement. Mainstreamed conservation gardening can be an economically viable, sustainable, and participatory measure that complements traditional approaches to plant conservation.

Competition between native and non-native plants.

2020 ◽  
pp. 291-307
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Wandrag ◽  
◽  
Jane A. Catford ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Invasion Biology ◽  
Competitive Interactions ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
New Locations ◽  
Strength Of Competition

The introduction of species to new locations leads to novel competitive interactions between resident native and newly-arriving non-native species. The nature of these competitive interactions can influence the suitability of the environment for the survival, reproduction and spread of non-native plant species, and the impact those species have on native plant communities. Indeed, the large literature on competition among plants reflects its importance in shaping the composition of plant communities, including the invasion success of non-native species. While competition and invasion theory have historically developed in parallel, the increasing recognition of the synergism between the two themes has led to new insights into how non-native plant species invade native plant communities, and the impacts they have on those plant communities. This chapter provides an entry point into the aspects of competition theory that can help explain the success, dominance and impacts of invasive species. It focuses on resource competition, which arises wherever the resources necessary for establishment, survival, reproduction and spread are in limited supply. It highlights key hypotheses developed in invasion biology that relate to ideas of competition, outlines biotic and abiotic factors that influence the strength of competition and species' relative competitive abilities, and describes when and how competition between non-native and native plant species can influence invasion outcomes. Understanding the processes that influence the strength of competition between non-native and native plant species is a necessary step towards understanding the causes and consequences of biological invasions.

Long-term response of the mamane forest to feral herbivore management on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Reddy ◽  
D H Van Vuren ◽  
P G Scowcroft ◽  
J B Kauffman ◽  
L Perry
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Forest Recovery ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Rate Of Increase ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Native Shrubs ◽  
Term Response

Seven exclosure sites located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii and established in the 1960s and 70s were sampled to characterize long-term response of the mamane (Sophora chrysophylla) forest to protection from feral sheep grazing, and to assess impacts of non-native plant species and recurrent sheep presence on forest recovery. The forest provides essential habitat for an endangered bird, the palila (Loxoides bailleui). Vegetation was sampled inside exclosures during 1972–1976, 1998, and 2009, and also outside exclosures during 2009. Patterns of response varied among exclosures, but overall, mamane trees and native shrubs showed increasing cover between the 1970s and 1998, then a slowed rate of increase in cover or a decline between 1998 and 2009. Cover of native herbaceous vegetation showed variable trends between the 1970s and 1998, and then appeared to decline between 1998 and 2009. Mamane height class distributions inside exclosures indicated that recruitment was initially high but then declined as heights shifted toward larger size classes, and presumably an older age distribution. We found limited evidence of a negative effect of non-native species on forest regrowth, but the effect was not consistent over time or among sites. Recurrent sheep presence outside exclosures negatively affected mamane canopy density and perhaps tree density at all sites, and mamane condition at some sites. Our results indicate that the mamane forest has shown substantial regrowth inside exclosures at some sites, especially those protected the longest. However, these exclosures represent a small portion of the mamane forest. Sheep presence continues to impact mamane recovery outside exclosures, and thus habitat quality for the palila.

scholarly journals A century of ecosystem change: human and seabird impacts on plant species extirpation and invasion on islands

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e2208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Lameris ◽  
Joseph R. Bennett ◽  
Louise K. Blight ◽  
Marissa Giesen ◽  
Michael H. Janssen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Soil Depth ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Ecosystem Change ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Species Cover

We used 116 years of floral and faunal records from Mandarte Island, British Columbia, Canada, to estimate the indirect effects of humans on plant communities via their effects on the population size of a surface-nesting, colonial seabird, the Glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens). Comparing current to historical records revealed 18 extirpations of native plant species (32% of species historically present), 31 exotic species introductions, and one case of exotic introduction followed by extirpation. Contemporary surveys indicated that native species cover declined dramatically from 1986 to 2006, coincident with the extirpation of ‘old-growth’ conifers. Because vegetation change co-occurred with an increasing gull population locally and regionally, we tested several predictions from the hypothesis that the presence and activities of seabirds help to explain those changes. Specifically, we predicted that on Mandarte and nearby islands with gull colonies, we should observe higher nutrient loading and exotic plant species richness and cover than on nearby islands without gull colonies, as a consequence of competitive dominance in species adapted to high soil nitrogen and trampling. As predicted, we found that native plant species cover and richness were lower, and exotic species cover and richness higher, on islands with versus without gull colonies. In addition, we found that soil carbon and nitrogen on islands with nesting gulls were positively related to soil depth and exotic species richness and cover across plots and islands. Our results support earlier suggestions that nesting seabirds can drive rapid change in insular plant communities by increasing nutrients and disturbing vegetation, and that human activities that affect seabird abundance may therefore indirectly affect plant community composition on islands with seabird colonies.

Neophytenbekämpfung an Gewässern im Spannungsfeld gesetzlicher Zielkonflikte (Essay)

2014 ◽  
Vol 165 (6) ◽  
pp. 140-145
Author(s):  
Norbert Kräuchi
Keyword(s):  
Tracer Experiment ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Reynoutria Japonica ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Efficient Control ◽  
The One ◽  
Legal Guidelines

Control of non-native plant species along streams: an area of conflict caused by legal trade-offs (essay) Driven by global trade and supported by climate change, we increasingly encounter new species in our ecosystems. Certain of these species, for example Asian Knotweeds (Reynoutria japonica, R. sachalinensis, R. × bohemica), exhibit immense growth rates and thereby suppress existing vegetation in revitalized reaches and biotopes deserving particular protection. The ecological damage accompanying the loss of biodiversity can only be contained by effective and efficient control measures. Contradictory legal guidelines at Federal level lead in practice to a conflict of aims, making goal-oriented control impossible. On the one hand the Chemical Risk Reduction Ordinance prohibits the use of pesticides in a 3-m strip along water stretches. On the other hand, numerous laws – such as the Federal Act on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage, the Water Protection Law and the Ordinance on the Handling of Organisms in the Environment infer that it is a responsibility to protect riparian zones and river banks as ecologically valuable habitats, and to take measures against invasive neophytes. As long-term investigations in the Canton of Aargau have shown, chemical control sustainably weakens the Asian Knotweed. Further, a fluorescent tracer experiment demonstrated that with careful implementation, the use of pesticides along a 3-m strip along riverbanks poses no threat to the stretch of water. Therefore the Canton of Aargau hopes that these findings contribute to the fastest possible resolution of this conflict of aims, so that investments made over the past years towards restoring stretches of water may be protected promptly from the threat of Asian Knotweed.

Ecological Problems in the Conservation of Plant Communities, with Special Reference to Central Europe

1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Medwecka-Kornaś
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Nature Reserves ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Vegetation Diversity ◽  
Natural Plant ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Hay Meadows ◽  
Baltic Coast

Exclusion of human interference from national parks and nature reserves commonly results in undesirable successional changes in the vegetation. First of all the semi-natural plant communities, which have been formed and maintained by traditional methods of extensive land-use—mowing, grazing, burning, etc.—are affected. In Poland this has happened, for example, to the halophytic meadows on the Baltic coast, the secondary xerothermic (‘steppe’) grassland in the southern highlands, and the mesic hay-meadows of the forest zones in the Carpathian Mountains. When neither mown nor grazed, they all lose more and more of their typical components, and finally disappear. Many such communities originated hundreds or thousands of years ago and include a number of native plant species which cannot be found in any of the natural vegetation types.The problems of conservation of semi-natural plant communities have been studied by the Author in three representative areas of Southern Poland: in the Gorce Mountains (Western Carpathians), the Niepolomice Forest, and the Ojców National Park near Cracow. In the Gorce Mountains about half the existing major plant communities belong to the semi-natural category and exhibit a much higher species-diversity than the natural forest vegetation (Table I). Similarly, in the northern part of the Niepolomice Forest, many more species are concentrated in the semi-natural, non-forest communities than in natural ones (Table II). For the Ojców area two maps, one of the actual vegetation and another of the expected or ‘potential natural’ vegetation, were compared and the topographic arrangement and successional trends of plant communities established (Table III). It became evident that, if all human impact were to be excluded from the Park, the rich semi-natural plant communities would completely disappear and many of their interesting components would become extinct at least locally.These data, as well as similar observations reported by other authors, explicitly demonstrate that very often the existing vegetation diversity in national parks and nature reserves may be maintained only when the ecological situation has been rightly understood and the proper management adopted.

scholarly journals A century of ecosystem change: human and seabird impacts on plant species extirpation and invasion on islands

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K Lameris ◽  
Joseph R Bennett ◽  
Louise K Blight ◽  
Marissa Giesen ◽  
Michael H Janssen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Exotic Species ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Soil Depth ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Ecosystem Change ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Species Cover

We used 116-years of floral and faunal records from Mandarte Island, British Columbia, Canada, to estimate the indirect effects of humans on plant communities via their effects on the population size of a surface-nesting, colonial seabird, the Glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens). Comparing current to historical records revealed 18 extirpations of native plant species (32% of species historically present), 31 exotic species introductions, and one case of exotic introduction followed by extirpation. Contemporary surveys indicated that native species cover declined dramatically from 1986 to 2006, coincident with the extirpation of ‘old-growth’ conifers. Because vegetation change co-occurred with an increasing gull population locally and regionally, we also tested predictions from the hypothesis that the presence and activities of seabirds help to explain those changes. Specifically, we predicted we would observe high nutrient loading and exotic plant species richness and cover on nearby islands with versus without gull colonies as a consequence of competitive dominance in species adapted to high soil nitrogen and trampling. As predicted, we found that native plant species cover and richness were lower, and exotic species cover and richness higher, on islands with versus without gull colonies. In addition, we found that soil carbon and nitrogen on islands with nesting gulls were positively related to soil depth and exotic species richness and cover across plots and islands. Our results suggest that gulls have the potential to drive rapid change in insular plant communities by increasing nutrients and disturbing vegetation. Because human activities have contributed to long-term change in gull populations, our results further suggest compelling, indirect links between human management decisions and plant community composition on islands of the Georgia Basin.

Biological indicators of climate change: evidence from long-term flowering records of plants along the Victorian coast, Australia

2010 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Libby Rumpff ◽  
Fiona Coates ◽  
John W. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Biological Indicators ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Community Groups ◽  
Native Plant Species ◽  
Coastal Species ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Recent Climate

We investigate the utility of using historical data sources to track changes in flowering time of coastal species in south-eastern Australia in response to recent climate warming. Studies of this nature in the southern hemisphere are rare, mainly because of a paucity of long-term data sources. Despite this, we found there is considerable potential to utilise existing data sourced from herbaria collections and field naturalists’ notes and diaries to identify native plant species suitable as biological indicators of climate change. Of 101 candidate species investigated in the present study, eight were identified as showing a general trend towards earlier flowering over time, indicating a correlation with increasing temperatures. There was some evidence to suggest that species which flower in spring and summer may be more sensitive to changes in temperature. There was a high level of uncertainty regarding the detection of trends, which was a function of the accessibility, abundance and accuracy of the various data sources. However, this uncertainty could be resolved in future studies by combining the datasets from the present study with field monitoring of phenological cycles in climatically different locations. Data held by community groups could be made more accessible if there was a concerted effort to fund collation and digitisation of these records. This might best be achieved by working with community groups, and facilitated through the recent establishment of a community phenological observation database in Australia.

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