Nonnative plant invasion increases urban vegetation structure and influences arthropod communities

Vegetation composition and structure of woody plant communities along urban

Urban forests adjacent to interstate corridors are understudied ecosystems across cities. Despite their small area, these forests may be strategically located to provide large ecosystem services due to their ability to act as a barrier against air pollutants and noise as well as to provide flood control. The woody vegetation composition and structure of forests adjacent to urban interstates is ...

Spatial heterogeneity influences native and nonnative plant species richness.

Spatial heterogeneity may have differential effects on the distribution of native and nonnative plant species richness. We examined the effects of spatial heterogeneity on native and nonnative plant species richness distributions in the central part of Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. Spatial heterogeneity around vegetation plots was characterized using landscape metrics, environmen...

Fuel breaks affect nonnative species abundance in Californian plant communities.

We evaluated the abundance of nonnative plants on fuel breaks and in adjacent untreated areas to determine if fuel treatments promote the invasion of nonnative plant species. Understanding the relationship between fuel treatments and nonnative plants is becoming increasingly important as federal and state agencies are currently implementing large fuel treatment programs throughout the United St...

Plant Communities: Native Vegetation of Nebraska

Responses of Prairie Arthropod Communities to Fire and Fertilizer: Balancing Plant and Arthropod Conservation

—Fire is an important tool for limiting woody plant invasions into prairies, but using fire management to maintain grassland plant communities may inadvertently reduce arthropod diversity. To test this, we established twenty-four 100 m plots in a tallgrass prairie in Galveston County, Texas, in spring 2000. Plots were assigned a fire (no burn, one time burn [2000], two time burn [2000, 2001]) a...