INVESTIGADORES
MONTTI Lia Fernanda
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Invasion of Ligustrum lucidum (Oleaceae) in Southern Yungas of Argentina. Changes on michrohabitat properties and avian communities
Autor/es:
AYUP MARTA; MONTTI LÍA; ARAGÓN ROXANA
Lugar:
Mar del Plata
Reunión:
Conferencia; 2nd World Conference on Biological Invasions and Ecosystem Functioning (BIOLIEF); 2011
Resumen:
Ligustrum lucidum is the most important exotic tree in mountainous forest of NW Argentina. After 100 years of introduction, it dominates thousands of hectares of secondary forests. In this study, conducted in the Sierra of San Javier, an area of mountainous forests close to San Miguel de Tucumán; (1) we compared the avian community in Ligustrum-dominated and native-dominated secondary forests during 2010-2011 wet and dry seasons, at two altitudinal levels of Yungas forest; (2) we generated a past and actual map of L. lucidum distribution; (3) we measured different microhabitat properties such as vegetal stratums, percentage of vegetal cover, temperature, relative humidity, soil litter depth, soil water content, chemical and physical properties; and (4) we compared successional trends in L. lucidum and native forests. Ligustrum dominated forests are expanding rapidly, making new forests ecologically different from the original ones. Habitat structure and percentage of vegetal cover were significantly different between both forest types. Ligustrum dominated forest present a more homogeneous structure with higher basal area and biomass; drier and more compacted soils with a less organic materials and nutrient content. Air temperature and relative humidity were not significantly different among forests and seasons. As expected, more homogeneous forest structures (invaded patches) were associated to lower bird diversity and density. These results suggests than during the coming decades, the invasion of Yungas forests by Ligustrum will imply regional scale changes in ecological functions ranging from soil biophysical properties to biodiversity of large vertebrates