Perception Of Dai Ethnic People On Non-Native Plants In Domestic Gardens,Xishuangbanna

With global warming and international trade expansion,invasion risks of non-native plant species have increased in recent decades all around the world.Meanwhile,more and more studies showed that public perception and their willingness to manage are important for the biological prevention and control process.In this study,we first investigated nonnative plant species distributed in domestic gardens via plant surveys in five Dai ethnic group villages in Xishuangbanna,Southwest China.We then used a questionnaire to examine different aspects of perceptions of local residents on non-natives in their gardens.Factors that might affect their perception levels were finally identified through generalized linear models,the main results are shown as follows:1.Total of 325 non-native plant species was found in 133 surveyed domestic gardens,which belong to 73 families and 230 genera.On average,there are 38 non-native plant species in each garden.The identified non-native plants are mostly originated from the tropical Americas,Southeast Africa,and Southeast Asia.The ornamental herb plants are dominated among all non-native plants found in the gardens.2.Local residents had low perceptions on non-native plants grown in their gardens.Over 76% of residents never heard about non-native plants before our survey,and the number of species identified by local residents was less than 1/3 of total non-natives species in local gardens.Furthermore,local residents relatively more knew well about the benefits of non-native species but had very limited knowledge about the negative impacts of non-natives in their gardens.3.Although over 94% of residents would like to remove or eradicate any non-native plants if needed,their willingness to learn more knowledge about non-natives were not so high(68%).Throwing non-natives as household garbage was the most favorite approach for non-native eradication from gardens,which might promote non-natives escape or naturalization to more natural environments.Furthermore,more residents selected local village committees and Buddhist temples to organize training activities for non-native management.4.Except for gender,all other socio-demographic factors(ethnic group,age,education,occupation,income level,and garden management effort)had effects on residents' perception and willingness.In particular,factors of income and occupation mainly affected whether residents know concepts of non-native plants or not before our survey.Dai ethnic people were identified to more confirm the distribution of non-natives in their gardens than Han Chinese.The management effort and age determined the resident's willingness to remove or eradicate non-natives from gardens.Age and education also affect future inputs to improve their knowledge about non-native plants.Based on our results,management strategies and actions like on-site monitoring of garden non-natives,education programmes and awareness-raising projects as well as alternative species that are natives for garden planting should be implemented as soon as possible if we want to reduce or effectively control invasion risks of these garden nonnative plants to local environments in the near future.