Abstract
Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity, human health, and economies worldwide. Clonal growth is a common ability of most invasive plants. The clonal common milkweed Asclepias syriaca L. is the most widespread invasive species in Pannonic sand grasslands. Despite of being an invader in disturbed semi-natural vegetation, this plant prefers agricultural fields or plantations. Herbicide treatment could be one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods for controlling the extended stands of milkweed in both agricultural and protected areas. The invasion of milkweed stand was monitored from 2011 to 2017 in a strictly protected UNESCO biosphere reserve in Hungary, and a single herbicide treatment was applied in May 2014. This single treatment was successful only in a short-term but not in a long-term period, as the number of milkweed shoots decreased following herbicide treatment. The herbicide translocation by rhizomatic roots induced the damage of dormant bud banks. The surviving buds developing shoots, growth of the milkweed stand showed a slow regeneration for a longer-term period. We concluded that the successful control of milkweed after herbicide treatment depends on repeated management of treated areas to suppress further spreading during subsequent seasons.
Highlights
Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity, human health, and e conomies[1,2,3,4]
We proposed the following questions: (a) How does the single treatment modify the number of shoots, shoot clusters, and reproductive characters of common milkweed in the mid-term? (b) How does the stand density change after the single herbicide treatment? Which strategies are used by this invasive species to recover as the stand creates a denser or sparser shoot-network due to re-establish the original area? Based on these results it could be determined how the stand is able to survive the herbicide application
The current research surveyed the effect of a single herbicide treatment on one isolated A. syriaca stand located in open sand grassland of a protected area
Summary
Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity, human health, and e conomies[1,2,3,4]. The mortality risk of clonal plants is low because death only occurs when both shoots and bud banks are simultaneously destroyed[40,56,57,58,59,60,61,62] This possibly explains why management of clonal spreading species is difficult even with herbicide treatment[63], and knowledge of invasive plant biology is essential for effective m anagement[8]. Common milkweed Asclepias syriaca is one of the most dangerous invasive transformer species currently widespread in Hungary and is spreading in Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Serbia, and several other countries[68,69,70,71,72] It primarily endangers psammophilous habitats where its structure differs from that of natural vegetation[73]. Could be determined whether a single herbicide treatment is a successful control measure in the short and mid-term
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