Australia Invasive Species

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yanne Spellman
The World Wildlife Fund stated that Australia contains fragments of tropical forests that 15 million years ago may have spanned both Australia and Antarctica. The scattered rainforests contain features of all forest categories, resulting in an assortment of plant communities that are extremely diverse. Over seven hundred species of plants and animals are scattered throughout the forest (Queensland Tropical Forests, 2015). Over time invasive species have slowly made a foothold in the Queensland tropical forest; an invasive species is an animal or plant that is not native to the area, and could possibly cause economic and environmental issues (Invasive Species, 2015). Sadly all of that biodiversity could change because usually …show more content…

In the article, Recruitment dynamics of invasive species in rainforest habitats following Cyclone Larry, it states that studies concentrated on the effects of small-scale destruction of …show more content…

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the shrub one of the100 worst invasive species in the world. It is also a Weed of National Significance making it one of the 20 most problematic species in Australia. It is believed that the weed increases fire risk in the Queensland rainforest by changing where the fuel beds lay. Lantana camara, is known for being extremely invasive and detrimental to the biodiversity; it can be found in various tropical and sub-tropical environments on about 60 continents. The weeds alter soil quality, water availability and fire regimes which was studied in this paper. Two mechanism were studied, such as whether the fires were caused because the weeds are more flammable than native species, or did the change in forest structure from the weeds allow fire to spread. Leaf and twig dry matter was measured and burned in laboratory trials. L. camara was discovered to be less flammable than the native species in the area; meaning that the first mechanism hypothesis was not accurate. To test the second mechanism fuel bed depths, percentage cover by fuels, and amount of medium-size class fuels were measured. These were found to be higher in the parts of the tropical forests

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