Climatic niche of Selinum alatum (Apiaceae, Selineae), a new invasive plant species in Central Europe and its alterations according to the climate change scenarios: Are the European mountains threatened by invasion?

Kamil Konowalik,Jarosław Proćków,Małgorzata Proćków,Tzen-Yuh Chiang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0182793

Kamil Konowalik, Jarosław Proćków + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182793

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Abstract

In recent years, a few established populations of Selinum alatum have been found in the Eastern Carpathians outside its native range that is the Caucasus and the Armenian Highlands. The species is spreading predominantly in Poland where it can outcompete native plants in certain cases. This study addresses a potential climatic niche of the plant with the special aims to illuminate future spreading and indicate areas suitable for invasion. Our results show that the extent of the favourable habitat of the species is broader than currently known. This suggests that the plant has the ability to become a potential new element in some semi-natural or disturbed ecosystems associated with mountainous areas, especially in Central and Southern Europe. Future (2070) models mostly rendered similar suitability maps, but showed slight differences over particular areas and a contraction of suitable habitats, mainly in the northern part of the non-native range.

Highlights

Invasion is considered as the second most important threat to biodiversity after habitat destruction [1]
According to MaxentVariableSelection [20], the highest AIC corrected for small sample sizes (AICc) score was assigned to the model with beta-multiplayer = 1
The set of the most important and uncorrelated climatic variables included five from the original 19 and they were: Isothermality (Bio03), Minimum Temperature of Coldest Month (Bio06), Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter (Bio08), Precipitation of Driest Month (Bio14), Precipitation Seasonality (Bio15). Those variables were distinctive for the observed populations and seem to influence the distribution of S. alatum and distinguish the Middle Eastern mountain ranges and the Caucasus Mts from their surroundings

Summary

Introduction

Invasion is considered as the second most important threat to biodiversity after habitat destruction [1]. Many publications considered key issues in plant invasion ecology and significantly improved our understanding of many aspects of invasions. Hypotheses and theories concerning plant invasion ecology were for example reviewed by Richardson and Pysek [5], and Rai [6]. These authors in detail discuss at least 16 different ecological attributes and theories.

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