Invasive alien plants in the Pampas grasslands: a tri-national cooperation challenge

FONSECA, CARLOS; GUADAGNÍN, DEMETRIO L.; EMER, CARINE; MASCIADRI BÁLSAMO, SILVANA; GERMAIN, P.; ZALBA, S.M.

BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2013 vol. 15 p. 1751 - 1763

1387-3547

The challenge of managing biological invasions requires novel approaches and coordinated efforts, especially among countries linked by intense trade routes and sharing common biomes. This is the case in southern South America, where Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay maintain intense commercial relationships and include continuous portions of the Pampas grasslands. Transnational similarities in this case exceed ecological features, including a common colonization history and similar development trends. This study represents a three-national cooperation effort to describe the alien plant flora invading the Pampas grasslands of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay and analyse their characteristics in order to detect species and traits that are shared among the three countries and those that have not yet managed to invade the whole region. Furthermore, we highlight the opportunities and needs of a common approach across countries to deal with plant invasions. Information about alien plant species was retrieved from the IABIN ? Invasives Information Network (I3N) project databases of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, complemented with some national herbaria. Three hundred and fifty six alien plant species were recorded growing in natural or seminatural habitats of the Pampas. Fifty species were found in Pampas grasslands of the three countries. Argentina shared 48 and 36 species with Brazil and Uruguay, respectively, while the Brazilian and the Uruguayan Pampas shared only 20 species. Poaceae, Asteraceae and Fabaceae were the families with the highest number of invasive species, and herbs were the most common life form (75%). Most invasive plants occurred originally in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and almost one quarter of the species are associated to some human use, especially to gardening. At the light of these results we discuss the opportunities and needs for international cooperation, including preventing introductions from one country to the other, using and improving risk analysis tools, defining priority invasive species, sharing information about successful and unsuccessful control programs, integrating actions for prevention, detection, containment, eradication and control of common invasions, establishing coherent regional legislation, and dealing with social perceptions and values.