Alien Plant Species In Mayor Roadsides And Trail Sides Of Lushan Natural Reserve, Jiangxi Province

The Lushan National Park harbors high species diversity and is home to many endemic species. Although some studies have found invasive alien species in the park, the distribution of those species remain unknown. Travel routes may play an important role in the spread of the invasive plants, with vehicles and hikers acting as dispersal agents. In order to understand the effects of human traffic on the distribution of alien plants, we surveyed424plots along three types of route:the perimeter road surrounding the park (hereafter PR), the northern and southern summiting roads that climbing the mountain (hereafter NR, SR), and several footpaths (hereafter FP). At each of these2m*2m plots, we recorded identity, abundance, coverage of alien and native plants, as well as site characteristics including elevation, surrounding habitats and sign of mowing. We employ multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to explore the relationship between alien plant abundance and abiotic factors. The results show that:(1) dominance family of alien plant species is Asteraceae in plots along either road or footpath, Erigeron annus and Trifolium repens are the dominant species for the PR plots, whereas Erigeron annus and Coreopsis graniflora are the dominant species in FP plots.(2) Most of the alien species in the park came from Europe, temperate and tropical region of America, which are of cosmopolitan genera and temperate originated genera, while only small amount of alien plant are of tropical or subtropical originated genera.(3) Composition of alien plant species in two route types differs significantly, with larger number and higher coverage of alien plant species occur in PR than in FP by MANOVA.(4) Number of alien plant species is higher at SR plots than that of NR plots, which may attribute to more intense management of the roadside in NR than in SR.(5) Elevation and naturalness degree have an important impact on the distribution of alien plants in the park by CCA. Thus, we advocate avoiding destroy of natural vegetation for buildings in the park and rehabilitating of bare ground along routes.