Historical demography of Lantana camara L. reveals clues about the influence of land use and weather in the management of this widespread invasive species

Abstract

Weather is a general stochastic influence on the life history of weeds. In contrast, anthropogenic disturbance (e.g. land use) is an important deterministic influence on weed demography. Our aim with this study was to investigate the relative contributions of land use and weather on the demography of Lantana camara (lantana), a weed of agricultural and natural habitats, based on the intensive monitoring of lantana populations under three land uses (viz. farm [pasture], and burnt and grazed forests) in subtropical Australia. Lantana populations were growing vigorously across all land uses (asymptotic population growth rate, λ > 3). Examination of historical demography using retrospective perturbation analyses showed that weather was a strong influence on lantana demography with the transition from an El Niño (2008-09) to a La Niña (2009-10) year having a strong positive effect on population growth rate. This effect was most marked at the grazed site, and to a lesser extent at the burnt site, with seedling-to-juvenile and juvenile-to-adult transitions contributing most to these effects. This is likely the result of burning and grazing having eliminated/reduced interspecific competition at these sites. Prospective perturbation analyses revealed that λ was most sensitive to proportionate changes in growth transitions, followed by fecundity and survival transitions. Examination of context-specific patterns in elasticity revealed that growth and fecundity transitions are likely to be the more critical vital rates to reduce λ in wet years at the burnt and grazed forest sites, compared to the farm/pasture site. Management of lantana may need to limit the transition of juveniles into the adult stages, especially in sites where lantana is free from competition (e.g. in the presence of fire or grazing), and this particularly needs to be achieved in wet years. Collectively, these results shed light on aspects of spatial and temporal variation in the demography of lantana, and offer insights on its context-specific management.

Understanding the limits to species‐wide demographic generalizations: the ecology and management of Parkinsonia aculeata

“…Our study adds to the growing body of literature that highlights the importance of the demographic variability within a species in relation to environmental context (Oostermeijer et al 1996, Menges and Quintana-Ascencio 2004, Endels et al 2005, Shea et al 2005, 2010, Jongejans et al 2008, Evans et al 2012Sm ıdov a and M€ unzbergov a 2012, Scanga and Leopold 2012, Andrieu et al 2013, Raghu et al 2014. We build on this body of work to develop a novel upscaling method to test whether there are context and upscaling influence ecological inferences and the ability to arrive at demographic generalizations.…”

“…, Raghu et al. ). We build on this body of work to develop a novel upscaling method to test whether there are context and upscaling influence ecological inferences and the ability to arrive at demographic generalizations.…”

Valorization of Toxic Weed Lantana camara L. Biomass for Adsorptive Removal of Lead

“…Its growth often competes with, suppresses, and crowds out more desirable species, which leads to a loss of plant diversity, in affecting the area. Other problems with this species include its toxicity to livestock and if it invades agricultural land it may cause a decrease in productivity [3]. In India, Australia, and South Africa, it is widespread occupying millions of hectares of land [1].…”