Title: Scientific approaches to selecting weed replacement plants for use by frugivorous birds.
Abstract:Invasive plants can be a source of conflict for conservation management. While the detrimental impacts of plant invasions on biodiversity and ecosystem function are well known, in some cases, invasive...Invasive plants can be a source of conflict for conservation management. While the detrimental impacts of plant invasions on biodiversity and ecosystem function are well known, in some cases, invasive plants perform important roles in supporting fauna. For example, fleshy-fruited invasive plants can provide food that subsidises native frugivores. How can such conservation vs. invasive weed control conflicts be managed? We suggest that for frugivorous birds, one approach is to provide replacement native food sources. We use two methods to best match native and invasive plant species. First, the fruit characteristics of the native and invasive plant are matched using functionally important traits. We used a scoring model of fruit traits using all native fleshy-fruited plant species from a region relative to a target invasive species. Highly ranked species were found to be used by more of the target invasive species’ frugivores than a random selection. Using a second approach, a cluster analysis of frugivory records of all the native plant species was performed to identify those native plants with the most similar frugivore assemblages to the invasive species. The native plant species derived from both methods can then be used as part of a restoration strategy to provide replacement food resources, and favour future seed dispersal of native, rather than invasive species. We illustrate this process using lantana (Lantana camara L.), the most significant invasive plant problem in south-eastern Queensland, as the target species.Read More
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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