Open Access
Subscription Access
Open Access
Subscription Access
Addressing the Management of a Long-established Invasive Shrub: the Case of Lantana Camara in Indian Forests
Subscribe/Renew Journal
Since its introduction in India 200 years ago, Lantana camara (Lantana) has become established and naturalised across a wide range of habitats. In Indian protected areas, lantana has been predominately managed using a range of mechanical removal approaches, costing up to 6000 per hectare. However, managed sites are rapidly recolonized by lantana and management programmes rarely achieve their goal of lantana eradication. In present study, we quantified recolonisation of lantana at sites that were either managed only once or for two consecutive years in Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand. Rapid recolonisation and recruitment is occuring from seed dispersal from surrounding lantana populations, soil seed banks and vegetative regeneration. To manage lantana effectively we need to consider these ecological processes. An alternate management programme is recommended for long-established invasive plants such as lantana, that focuses on (a) prioritizing critical habitats that require management of invasive species (b) long-term monitoring and management scaled to timeframes of ecological processes, i.e., lantana dispersal and soil seed banks, and (c) phased enlargement of managed sites such that over time, high-priority habitats can be isolated from dispersal originating from surrounding lantana source populations.
Keywords
Dispersal, Invasive Species Management, Lantana Camara, Rajaji National Park, Regeneration.
Font Size
User
About The Authors
Subscription
Login to verify subscription
Information
Submissions
- Anonymous. (1895). Is the Lantana a friend or enemy? Indian Forester, 21:455–460.
- Babu, S., Love, A. and Babu, C.R. (2009). Ecological restoration of lantana-invaded landscapes in Corbett Tiger Reserve, India, Ecological Restoration, 27:467–477.
- Balch, J.K., Massad, T.J., Brando, P.M., Nepstad, D.C. and Curran, L.M. (2013). Effects of high-frequency understorey fires on woody plant regeneration in southeastern Amazonian forests, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 368: 20120157.
- Bhagwat, S.A., Breman, E., Thekaekara, T., Thornton, T.F. and Willis, K.J. (2012). A battle lost? Report on two centuries of invasion and management of Lantana camara L. in Australia, India and South Africa. PLoS ONE, 7:e32407.
- Briggs, J.K. (2005). An ecosystem in transition: causes and consequences of the conversion of mesic grassland to shrubland, BioScience, 55:243–254.
- Corbin, J.D. and D' Antonio, C.M. (2004). Gone but not forgotten? Invasive plants' legacies on community and ecosystem properties. Invasive Plant Science and Management, 5:117–124.
- Corlett, R.T. (2002). Frugivory and seed dispersal in degraded tropical East Asian landscapes. In: Seed Dispersal and Frugivory: Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (D. J. Levey, W. R. Silva, M. Galetti, Eds), CAB International, Wallingford, UK, pp. 451–465.
- De, A. (2007). Patterns of plant species diversity in the forest corridor of Rajaji–Corbett National Parks, Uttaranchal, India, Current Science, 92:90–93.
- Duggin, J.A. and Gentle, C.B. (1998). Experimental evidence on the importance of disturbance intensity for invasion of Lantana camara L. in dry rainforest-open forest ecotones in north-eastern NSW, Australia, Forest Ecology and Management, 109:279–292.
- Elgersma, K.J., Ehrenfeld, J.G., Yu, S. and Vor, T. (2011). Legacy effects overwhelm the short-term effects of exotic plant invasion and restoration on soil microbial community structure, enzyme activities, and nitrogen cycling, Oecologia, 167:733–745.
- Fletcher, C.S. and Westcott, D.A. (in press). Dispersal and the design of effective management strategies for plant invasions: matching scales for success.
- Harihar, A. and Pandav, B. (2012). Influence of connectivity, wild prey and disturbance on occupancy of tigers in the human-dominated western terai arc landscape, PLoS ONE, 7:e40105.
- Johnsingh, A.J.T. and Negi, A. (2003). Status of tiger and leopard in Rajaji–Corbett Conservation Unit, northern India, Biological Conservation, 111:385–393.
- Kannan, R., Shackleton, C.M. and Shaanker, R.U. (2013a). Reconstructing the history of introduction and spread of the invasive species, Lantana, at three spatial scales in India, Biological Invasions, 15:1287–1302.
- Kannan, R., Shackleton, C.M. and Uma Shaanker, R. (2013b). Playing with the forest: invasive alien plants, policy and protected areas in India, Current Science, 104:1159–1165.
- Keuffer, C., Schumacher, E., Fleischmann, K., Edwards, P.J. and Dietz, H. (2007). Strong below-ground competition shapes tree regeneration in invasive Cinnamomum verum forests, Journal of Ecology, 95:273–282.
- Kulmatiski,A. (2006). Exotic plants establish persistent communities, Plant Ecology, 187: 261–275.
- Lambdon, P.W., Pyšek, P., Basnou, C., Hejda, M., Arianoutsou, M., Essl, F., Jarošík, V., Pergl, J., Winter, M., Anastasiu, P., Andriopoulos, P., Bazos, I., Brundu, G., Celesti-Grapow, L., Chassot, P., Delipetrou, P., Josefsson, M., Kark, S., Koltz, S., Kokkoris, Y., Kuhn, I., Marchante, H., Perglova, I., Pino, J., Vila, M., Zikos, A., Roy, D.B. and Hulme, P.E. (2008). Alien flora of europe: Species diversity, temporal trends, geographical patterns and research needs, Preslia, 80:101–149.
- Love, A., Babu, S. and Babu, C.R. (2009). Management of Lantana, an invasive alien weed, in forest ecosystems of India, Current Science, 97:1421–1429.
- Mack, R.N., Simberloff, D., Lonsdale, W.M., Evans, H., Clout, M. and Bazzaz, F.A. (2000). Biotic invasions: causes, epidemiology, global consequences, and control, Ecological Applications, 10:689–710.
- Muniappan, R., Reddy, G.V.P. and Lai, P. (2005). Distribution and biological control of Chromolaena odorata. In: Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects (Inderjit, Ed.), Birkhäuser, Basel, pp 223-233.
- Osunkoya, O.O., Perrett, C., Fernando, C., Clark, C. and Raghu, S. (2012). Stand dynamics and spatial patterns across varying sites in the invasive Lantana camara L. (Verbenaceae), Plant Ecology, 213: 883–897.
- Pandey, S., Joshua, J., Rai, N.D., Mohan, R., Rawat, G.S., Sankar, K., Katti, M.V., Khati, D.V.S. and Johnsingh, A.J.T. (1994). Birds of Rajaji National Park, India, Forktail, 10:105–113.
- Pimentel, D., Lach, L., Zuniga, R. and Morrison, D. (2000). Environmental and economic costs of nonindigenous species in the United States, BioScience, 50:53–65.
- Prasad, A.E. (2010) Effects of an exotic plant invasion on native understory plants in a tropical dry forest, Conservation Biology, 24:747–757.
- Pyšek, P., Jarošík, V., Hulme, P.E., Kuhn, I., Wild, J., Arianoutsou, M., Bacher, S., Chiron, F., Didziulis, V., Essl, F., Genovesi, P., Hejda, M., Kark, S., Lambdon, P.W., Desprez-Loustau, M.L., Nentwig, W., Pergl, J., Poboljsaj, K., Rabitsch, W., Roques, A., Roy, D.B., Shirley, S., Solarz, W., Vila, M. and Winter, M. (2010). Disentangling the role of environmental and human pressures on biological invasions across Europe, PNAS, 107: 12157–12162.
- Raizada, P. and Raghubanshi, A.S. (2010). Seed germination behaviour of Lantana camara in response to smoke, Tropical Ecology, 51:347–352.
- Ramaswami, G. and Sukumar, R. (2013). Long-term environmental correlates of invasion by Lantana camara (Verbenaceae) in a seasonally dry tropical forest, PLoS ONE, 8:e76995.
- Richardson, D.M., Holmes, P.M., Esler, K.J., Galatowitsch, S.M., Stromberg, J.C., Kirkman, S.P., Pyšek, P. and Hobbs, R.J. (2007). Riparian vegetation: degradation, alien plant invasions, and restoration prospects, Diversity and Distributions, 13:126–139.
- Sharma, G.P., Raghubanshi, A.S. and Singh, J.S. (2005). Lantana invasion: An overview, Weed Biology and Management, 5:157–165.
- Simberloff, D. and Holle, B.V. (1999) Positive interactions of nonindigenous species: invasional meltdown? Biological Invasions, 1:21–32.
- Sineden, J., Jones, R., Hester, S., Odom, D., Kalisch, C., James, R., Cacho, O. and Griffith,G. (2004). The Economic Impact of Weeds in Australia, Report, Australia.
- Singh, V.B. (1978). The Elephant in UP. (India). A resurvey of it's status after 10 years, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 75:71–82.
- Sundaram, B. and Hiremath, A. (2012). Lantana camara invasion in a heterogeneous landscape: patterns of spread and correlation with changes in native vegetation, Biological Invasions, 14:1127–1141.
- Taylor, S., Kumar, L., Reid, N. and Kriticos, D.J. (2012). Climate change and the potential distribution of an invasive shrub, Lantana camara L., PLoS ONE, 7:e35565.
- Vardien, W., Richardson, D.M., Foxcroft, L.C., Thompson, G.D., Wilson, J.R.U. and Le Roux, J.J. (2012). Invasion dynamics of Lantana camara L. (sensu lato) in South Africa, South African J. Botany, 81:81–94.
- Vasudevan, K., Adhikari, B.S., Pandav, B., Sivakumar, K. and Uniyal, V.P. (2009). Monitoring the changes in biological diversity after the relocation of Gujjars in Rajaji-Corbett Conservation Area, Final Technical Report, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India.
- Weir, J.E.S. and Corlett, R.T. (2007). How far do birds disperse seeds in the degraded tropical landscape of Hong Kong, China? Landscape Ecology, 22:131–140.
- Westcott, D.A. and Fletcher, C.S. (2011). Biological invasions and the study of vertebrate dispersal of plants: Opportunities and integration, Acta Oecologica, 37:650–656.
Abstract Views: 363
PDF Views: 0