Tree Species Composition and Diversity and the Abundance of Exotics in Forest Fragments of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Community structure, succession and invasibility in a seasonal deciduous forest in southern Brazil

“…In our study, we did not observe differences in structure and composition between plant communities invaded and non-invaded by H. dulcis. The same results were observed for other invasive tree species (Martínez 2010;Siderhurst et al 2012;Whitfield et al 2014). One possible explanation for this result is that spatial and temporal variation in extrinsic factors, such as disturbance history and propagule pressure, could have been more important in determining the forest regeneration dynamics than the invasive species presence (Shea and Chesson 2002).…”

“…Land use history remains a major determinant of forest composition and structure (Flinn and Marks 2007;Martínez 2010), and many studies have indicated that the history of use may increase the abundance of invasive plants in forest landscapes (Von Holle and Motzkin 2007;DeGasperis and Motzkin 2007;Martínez 2010;Siderhurst et al 2012). The historic component of human occupation in the region was therefore decisive for forest fragmentation as well as essential for the increase of propagule pressure of H. dulcis, consequently optimizing the colonization by the species (Siderhurst et al 2012), with the greatest benefits to the invasive species occurring in low competition, high disturbance sites (Bellingham et al 2005).…”