Global environmental and socio-economic impacts of selected alien grasses as a basis for ranking threats to South Africa

Nkuna, Khensani V.; Visser, Vernon; Wilson, John R.; Kumschick, Sabrina

doi:10.3897/neobiota.41.26599

Cited by 19 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa has been applied to various taxa that are known to occur as alien species in South Africa including grasses (Visser et al 2017;Nkuna et al 2018;Canavan et al 2019), amphibians (Kumschick et al 2017), birds (Evans et al 2016), mammals (Hagen and Kumschick 2018), fish (Marr et al 2017), gastropods (Kesner and Kumschick 2018), and some other invertebrates (Nelufule 2018). Most EICAT assessments performed to date have been done at a global scale, i.e.…”

Section: Impact-scoring Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are six grass species that have had EICAT assessments done at a national scale for South Africa, with Arundo donax (Giant Reed) and Glyceria maxima (Reed Meadow Grass) evaluated as having major impacts (Visser et al 2017;Nkuna et al 2018;VK Nkuna, unpublished data). These two species have been implicated in competitively displacing native species; A. donax, for example, dominates riparian areas and can locally exclude native plants (Holmes et al 2005;Guthrie 2007), while G. maxima has locally displaced some native wetland species (Mugwedi 2012).…”

Section: Grassesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Evaluation of the Impacts of Alien Species on Biodiversity in South Africa Using Different Assessment Methods

Zengeya

Kumschick

Weyl

et al. 2020

Biological Invasions in South Africa

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Studies of the impact of alien species on the environment are increasingly being carried out, and there has been ongoing debate about how to standardise the description of these impacts. This chapter evaluates the state of knowledge on the impacts of alien species on biodiversity in South Africa based on different assessment methods. Despite South Africa being one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, there have been very few studies that formally document the impacts of alien species on biodiversity. Most of what is known is based on expert opinion, and consequently the level of confidence in the estimates of the magnitude of these impacts is low. However, it is clear that a significant number of alien species cause major negative impacts, and that there is cause for serious concern. There is a

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Section: Impact-scoring Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Grassesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the Impacts of Alien Species on Biodiversity in South Africa Using Different Assessment Methods

Zengeya

Kumschick

Weyl

et al. 2020

Biological Invasions in South Africa

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“…This does not, however, mean that the impacts should not be recorded nor that they will require management to reduce negative impacts (e.g. see Nkuna et al 2018 Only taxa marked X clearly fulfilled criteria for listing as "invasive" (sensu Richardson et al 2000b) in natural or semi-natural ecosystems; those marked with W are listed as "invasive" in other regions by Weber (2017), but do not meet all criteria for listing as invasive sensu Richardson et al (2000b)…”

Section: Naturalised Distributions and Invasive Status As Different Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

South Africa as a Donor of Naturalised and Invasive Plants to Other Parts of the World

Pyšek

Pergl

Kleunen

et al. 2020

Biological Invasions in South Africa

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This chapter provides the first assessment of South African native vascular plants as naturalised and invasive species in other parts of the world. For naturalised species, Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) data were used, while for invasive species an assessment was made using the peer-reviewed literature, experience of the authors, and correspondence with authorities in many parts of the world. Results show that 1093 South African native plant taxa have been recorded as naturalised, but for only 79 of these is there strong and unequivocal evidence of invasiveness in natural or semi-natural ecosystems (another 132 taxa have been listed as invasive, but do not fulfil all criteria for listing as such). Thirty-five taxa have naturalised in more than 100 regions (countries, states, provinces, districts, or individual islands), and six taxa (all grasses-family Poaceae) are naturalised in more than 200 regions. However, of these, only 12 (34.2%) are recorded as invasive, and only nine fulfil the more conservative definition of invasive. These figures indicate that to be widely distributed does not automatically translate into being a strong invader, and that taxa that are extremely successful as invaders in some regions only succeed in specific environmental and geographic settings, and many of them are not widespread alien plants. Grasses are over-represented among both naturalised and invasive South African plant exports: 15% of naturalised species and 23% of invasive species are grasses. Temperate Asia and Europe are net donors of naturalised plants to South Africa, but Australasia and the Pacific Islands have received many more naturalised plants than they have donated to South Africa. Of taxa native to South Africa recorded as unequivocally invasive outside of cultivation elsewhere, 65% occur in Australia. 26.1 Introduction Information on the global distribution of alien plant species has improved dramatically over the last decade (van Kleunen et al. 2015; Pyšek et al. 2017), largely due to the Global Naturalized Alien Flora database (GloNAF; www.glonaf.org) that integrates and summarises the wealth of regional data on the occurrence of naturalised alien plants worldwide (sensu Richardson et al. 2000b). In January 2019, GloNAF contained data on the distribution of 13,939 plant taxa in 1029 regions, including 381 islands (the regions in GloNAF correspond to countries, states, provinces, districts, or individual islands, see van Kleunen et al. 2019 for the full list). GloNAF has been used for testing a wide range of central concepts and hypotheses in invasion biology (see

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“…Nkuna, et al [58] analysed environmental and socio-economic impacts of 58 selected alien grass species in South Africa by applying the Generic Impact Scoring System method. They found that these species caused a wide range of negative impacts across most habitats.…”

Section: Invasivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Economics of Arundo donax—A Systematic Literature Review

Jámbor

Török

2019

Sustainability

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Arundo donax (giant reed) is an herbaceous, perennial and non-food crop producing dry biomass with relatively high yields in many regions and under different climates. Although there exists a large amount of literature on A. donax, the economic aspects are somehow neglected or are very much limited in most papers. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the economics of A. donax by applying a systematic literature review of the field. Our sample consists of 68 relevant studies out of the 6009 identified, classified into four groups: Bioenergy, agronomy, invasiveness and phytoremediation. Most papers were focusing on Italy and on the Mediterranean region and were written on the bioenergy aspect. Most studies suggest that A. donax has a relatively high energy balance and yields, high investment but low maintenance costs and high potentials for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. However, a certain section of the literature, mainly based on US experience, shows that giant reed should be produced with care due to its invasiveness hazard. On the whole, A. donax was found to have high economic potentials for biomass production in marginal as well as disadvantageous lands operated by small farmers in the Mediterranean region.

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Global environmental and socio-economic impacts of selected alien grasses as a basis for ranking threats to South Africa

Cited by 19 publications

References 52 publications

An Evaluation of the Impacts of Alien Species on Biodiversity in South Africa Using Different Assessment Methods

An Evaluation of the Impacts of Alien Species on Biodiversity in South Africa Using Different Assessment Methods

South Africa as a Donor of Naturalised and Invasive Plants to Other Parts of the World

The Economics of Arundo donax—A Systematic Literature Review

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