INVESTIGADORES
TORRES Carolina Cecilia
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Invasive plants in Chaco forests: relationships between plant density and survival, livestock, and forest fragmentation
Autor/es:
SORIA, N.; TORRES, C; GALETTO, L.
Lugar:
Mar del Plata
Reunión:
Workshop; 2nd World Conference on Biological Invasions and Ecosystem Functioning; 2011
Resumen:
Invasive species have been
considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. Those can produce
significant changes in the composition, structure and several processes of
natural ecosystems, threatening native biodiversity. Landscape fragmentation
can aldo reduce biodiversity and represents one of the main factors associated
with the introduction of invasive species that generally simplify natural
communities. Furthermore, livestock can have a direct influence on the dynamics
of plant communities, modifying their susceptibility to establishment and
spread of invasive plant species. In this study, we evaluated invasibility on
18 forest fragments with different sizes and livestock grazing intensities, in
Córdoba Province (31º S, 64º W). We compared density (richness and abundance)
and survival of all exotic plant species (considering 10 transects per site)
between fragments of different sizes (small, medium, and large) and livestock
grazing intensity (low and high). No significant differences were found in these
variables. A total of 32 exotic species were found (10 in all sites and 17 only
present in medium and large fragments). Twenty of these species were very common
in all sites, the remaining 12 showed low abundance. We obtained high survival
values (>50%) for most of the species registered. Results
suggest that, regarding the analyzed variables, responses of invasive plants
would be species-specific in the studied system.