Botanical Survey of the Nakauvadra Range, Ra Province, Fiji

Niukula, Jone

doi:10.1896/054.057.0106

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…The CIS forest park was established in 1952, having being originally a lowland tropical rainforest, which was logged in the 1940s and 1950s (Paine 1991). In 1960, this reserve was inter-planted with South American mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), an introduced tree used for timber production, which meant that there was clearing of the native rainforest in order to facilitate the establishment of the plantation (Tuiwawa 1998). The native and dominant trees mixed with mahogany are Garcinia myrtiflora, Garcinia myrtiflora, Psychotria amoeba, Cryptocarya constricta and Haplolobus floribundus.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Alien palm invasion leads to selective biotic filtering of resident plant communities towards competitive functional traits

Forey¹,

Lodhar

Galvin

et al. 2023

Biol Invasions

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Biological invasions drive biodiversity loss and ecosystem change on tropical islands. However, we know little about the implications of species losses on the functional structure of both resident and novel communities. Herein, we examined the potential effect of a non-native palm species, Pinanga coronata, on the taxonomic and functional assemblages of understory plant species in a Fijian rainforest. We predicted that competition from this invasive species would lead to trait convergence according to the competitive hierarchy hypothesis. Using a trait-based approach, we sampled plant communities in 280 plots across a gradient of P. coronata densities. We measured five functional traits, including height and leaf traits related to nutrient acquisition. We found that an increase in P. coronata density is strongly correlated with a decrease in taxonomic diversity (i.e., about − 50% for species richness and − 33% for Shannon diversity index) and a decrease in functional richness. Community-weighted mean values of traits of resident species (i.e., excluding P. coronata) converged toward competitive strategies such as higher leaf nitrogen content (LNC), lower carbon-to-nitrogen (C:N) ratios and leaf dry matter content (LDMC), a pattern that is significantly non-random for LDMC and C:N. This study demonstrates that P. coronata might act as a strong biotic filter responsible for species loss and functional changes. Our findings suggest that in response to increasing competition with this invasive plant, resident and novel plant communities shift toward less diverse and more competitive assemblages. Nevertheless, the intensity of this filtering is habitat dependent (e.g. less filtering effect under mahogany trees). Lastly, changes in resource acquisition strategies (mainly nutrient-based) in particular in low nutrient status of rainforest soils, could lead to long-term impacts on tree regeneration, in turn causing large-scale changes in ecosystem properties.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%