Climate Change and the Potential Distribution of an Invasive Shrub, Lantana camara L

The threat posed by invasive species, in particular weeds, to biodiversity may be exacerbated by climate change. Lantana camara L. (lantana) is a woody shrub that is highly invasive in many countries of the world. It has a profound economic and environmental impact worldwide, including Australia. Knowledge of the likely potential distribution of this invasive species under current and future climate will be useful in planning better strategies to manage the invasion. A process-oriented niche model of L. camara was developed using CLIMEX to estimate its potential distribution under current and future climate scenarios. The model was calibrated using data from several knowledge domains, including phenological observations and geographic distribution records. The potential distribution of lantana under historical climate exceeded the current distribution in some areas of the world, notably Africa and Asia. Under future scenarios, the climatically suitable areas for L. camara globally were projected to contract. However, some areas were identified in North Africa, Europe and Australia that may become climatically suitable under future climates. In South Africa and China, its potential distribution could expand further inland. These results can inform strategic planning by biosecurity agencies, identifying areas to target for eradication or containment. Distribution maps of risk of potential invasion can be useful tools in public awareness campaigns, especially in countries that have been identified as becoming climatically suitable for L. camara under the future climate scenarios

A Battle Lost? Report on Two Centuries of Invasion and Management of Lantana camara L. in Australia, India and South Africa

Recent discussion on invasive species has invigorated the debate on strategies to manage these species. Lantana camara L., a shrub native to the American tropics, has become one of the worst weeds in recorded history. In Australia, India and South Africa, Lantana has become very widespread occupying millions of hectares of land. Here, we examine historical records to reconstruct invasion and management of Lantana over two centuries and ask: Can we fight the spread of invasive species or do we need to develop strategies for their adaptive management? We carried out extensive research of historical records constituting over 75% of records on invasion and management of this species in the three countries. The records indicate that governments in Australia, India and South Africa have taken aggressive measures to eradicate Lantana over the last two centuries, but these efforts have been largely unsuccessful. We found that despite control measures, the invasion trajectory of Lantana has continued upwards and that post-war land-use change might have been a possible trigger for this spread. A large majority of studies on invasive species address timescales of less than one year; and even fewer address timescales of >10 years. An understanding of species invasions over long time-scales is of paramount importance. While archival records may give only a partial picture of the spread and management of invasive species, in the absence of any other long-term dataset on the ecology of Lantana, our study provides an important insight into its invasion, spread and management over two centuries and across three continents. While the established paradigm is to expend available resources on attempting to eradicate invasive species, our findings suggest that in the future, conservationists will need to develop strategies for their adaptive management rather than fighting a losing battle

Biological Invasions in South Africa: an overview

South Africa has much to offer as a location for the study of biological invasions. It is an ecologically diverse country comprised of nine distinct terrestrial biomes, four recognised marine ecoregions, and two sub-Antarctic Islands. The country has a rich and chequered socio-political history, and a similarly varied history of species introductions. There has been a long tradition of large-scale conservation in the country, and efforts to manage and regulate invasions began in the nineteenth century, with some notable successes, but many setbacks. With the advent of democracy in the early 1990s, South Africa established large alien species control programmes to meet the dual demands of poverty alleviation and conservation, and has since pioneered regulatory approaches to address invasions. In terms of research, South Africa has played an important role in the development of invasion science globally. It continues to have one of the most active communities anywhere in the world, with strengths in theoretical and applied invasion science, and world-leading expertise in specific sub-disciplines (e.g. the classical biological control of invasive plants). In this introductory chapter to the book “Biological Invasions in South Africa”, we highlight key events that have affected biological invasions, their management, and the research conducted over the past two centuries. In so doing, we build on earlier reviews—from a national situational review of the state of knowledge in 1986, culminating most recently with a comprehensive report on the status of biological invasions and their management at a national level in 2018. Our book comprises 31 chapters (including this one), divided into seven parts that examine where we have come from, where we are, how we got here, why the issue is important, what we are doing about it, what we have learnt, and where we may be headed. The book lists over 1400 alien species that have established outside of captivity or cultivation. These species cost the country at least US$1 billion per year (~ZAR 15 billion), and threaten South Africa’s unique biodiversity. The introduction and spread of alien species, the impacts that they have had, the benefits that they have brought, and the attempts to manage them have provided many opportunities for research. Documenting what we have learned from this unplanned experiment is a primary goal of this book. We hope this book will allow readers to better understand biological invasions in South Africa, and thereby assist them in responding to the challenge of addressing the problem