Vegetation changes associated to coastal tourist urbanizations

FAGGI A & J. DADON

Campos de Jordao, Brasil

Congreso; Latin America IALE Conference; 2009

IALE

This study shows evidences of plant homogenization and differentiation in the vascular flora of 18 beach resorts located along the northern end of the Argentinean Atlantic coast. Data were collected along a gradient of urban land-uses and activities, extending away from city centres along a line 10 km-long. Ninety plant surveys were carried out in 38 sampling sites at resort centres, 2 km, 5 km and 10 km from the urban edge. We compared spatial and temporal similarities among sites using current and historical data. Our results showed that the current number of species (114) more than doubled the number recorded in pre-tourism times (40) at the resort centres. Many immigrant species were introduced – whether deliberately or not – from both neighbouring and far away plant communities. Clearly, exotics were more useful than natives to exposing some pre-existing drivers along the gradient. “Eutrophication” and “Urban green” were the two major driving forces affecting the distribution and abundance of indicators species.