Changes in assemblages of native and alien plants in perennial plantations: prairie species stabilize the community composition

By

Kutlvašr, Josef
Baroš, Adam
Pyšek, Petr
Pergl, Jan

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020

Original Publication

NeoBiota : advancing research on alien species and biological invasions

Volume

63

Pages

39--56

Subjects

Artificial habitats , diversity , flowerbeds , Horticulture , long-term monitoring , plant assemblage , species origin

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sophia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.63.51109

 

Abstract

Ornamental plantations are characteristic of a wide range of man-made habitats such as gardens, parks or urban spaces. Nowadays, low-maintenance perennial beds are becoming popular in horticulture and urban planning. Due to low levels of management and good records of initial plantation, perennial beds are suitable for studying vegetation processes such as competition amongst garden ornamentals and succession. We studied perennial flowerbeds in the Czech Republic that had a known initial composition at the time of establishment in 2006–2010 and we compared this with their state in 2016. We aimed to assess (i) how planted ornamental assemblages changed during 10 years of succession, and (ii) whether initial assemblage composition determined the pattern of change. We observed a decrease in biodiversity from initial plantation to the recent state across all flowerbeds in the experimental garden. In terms of diversity and stability, species-rich assemblages, mostly composed of taxa native to prairies, were the most stable. The most successful taxa (i.e. reaching high abundances with good persistence) originated from North American and Mediterranean regions.