Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem
Effects of roads on plant communities are not well known in cold-climate mountain ecosystems, where road building and development are expected to increase in future decades. Knowledge of the sensitivity of mountain plant communities to disturbance by roads is however important for future conservatio...
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ftenkore:wikidata-Q35107852 2024-01-07T09:46:54+01:00 Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem Lembrechts, Jonas J Milbau, Ann Nijs, Ivan 2014-02-26 https://scholia.toolforge.org/work/Q35107852 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q35107852 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935920 https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) https://scholia.toolforge.org/work/Q35107852 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q35107852 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935920 doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ecosystem plant community journal article 2014 ftenkore https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 2023-12-11T19:24:51Z Effects of roads on plant communities are not well known in cold-climate mountain ecosystems, where road building and development are expected to increase in future decades. Knowledge of the sensitivity of mountain plant communities to disturbance by roads is however important for future conservation purposes. We investigate the effects of roads on species richness and composition, including the plant strategies that are most affected, along three elevational gradients in a subarctic mountain ecosystem. We also examine whether mountain roads promote the introduction and invasion of alien plant species from the lowlands to the alpine zone. Observations of plant community composition were made together with abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors in 60 T-shaped transects. Alpine plant communities reacted differently to road disturbances than their lowland counterparts. On high elevations, the roadside species composition was more similar to that of the local natural communities. Less competitive and ruderal species were present at high compared with lower elevation roadsides. While the effects of roads thus seem to be mitigated in the alpine environment for plant species in general, mountain plant communities are more invasible than lowland communities. More precisely, relatively more alien species present in the roadside were found to invade into the surrounding natural community at high compared to low elevations. We conclude that effects of roads and introduction of alien species in lowlands cannot simply be extrapolated to the alpine and subarctic environment. Article in Journal/Newspaper Subarctic enKORE project PLoS ONE 9 2 e89664 |
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Open Polar |
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enKORE project |
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ftenkore |
language |
English |
topic |
ecosystem plant community |
spellingShingle |
ecosystem plant community Lembrechts, Jonas J Milbau, Ann Nijs, Ivan Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
topic_facet |
ecosystem plant community |
description |
Effects of roads on plant communities are not well known in cold-climate mountain ecosystems, where road building and development are expected to increase in future decades. Knowledge of the sensitivity of mountain plant communities to disturbance by roads is however important for future conservation purposes. We investigate the effects of roads on species richness and composition, including the plant strategies that are most affected, along three elevational gradients in a subarctic mountain ecosystem. We also examine whether mountain roads promote the introduction and invasion of alien plant species from the lowlands to the alpine zone. Observations of plant community composition were made together with abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors in 60 T-shaped transects. Alpine plant communities reacted differently to road disturbances than their lowland counterparts. On high elevations, the roadside species composition was more similar to that of the local natural communities. Less competitive and ruderal species were present at high compared with lower elevation roadsides. While the effects of roads thus seem to be mitigated in the alpine environment for plant species in general, mountain plant communities are more invasible than lowland communities. More precisely, relatively more alien species present in the roadside were found to invade into the surrounding natural community at high compared to low elevations. We conclude that effects of roads and introduction of alien species in lowlands cannot simply be extrapolated to the alpine and subarctic environment. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Lembrechts, Jonas J Milbau, Ann Nijs, Ivan |
author_facet |
Lembrechts, Jonas J Milbau, Ann Nijs, Ivan |
author_sort |
Lembrechts, Jonas J |
title |
Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
title_short |
Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
title_full |
Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
title_fullStr |
Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
title_full_unstemmed |
Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
title_sort |
alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://scholia.toolforge.org/work/Q35107852 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q35107852 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935920 https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 |
genre |
Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Subarctic |
op_relation |
https://scholia.toolforge.org/work/Q35107852 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q35107852 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935920 doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0089664 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
e89664 |
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1787428816571858944 |