Composition and phylogenetic structure of Pampean grasslands under distinct land use and presence of alien species

de Oliveira Junior, Neil Damas and Diniz, Écio Souza and Avila Jr, Rubem Samuel de (2023) Composition and phylogenetic structure of Pampean grasslands under distinct land use and presence of alien species. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY, 24 (1). pp. 73-86. ISSN 1585-8553 (print); 1588-2756 (online)

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Abstract

Alien species can modify ecosystem functions and ecological processes in natural communities and potentially become inva- sive. In the Brazilian Pampean grasslands, reports of changes in land use and invasions of alien plant species are becoming more frequent. This study aimed to investigate species composition and phylogenetic relationships between native and alien plants across four sites of Brazilian Pampean grasslands under distinct land uses (NOM: no agricultural management; GRZ: grazed pastures; AGR: agrarian crops; ROAD: roadside). The phylogenetic relationship between native and alien species was analyzed at two scales: inter-site and intra-site. We found phylogenetic diversity dissimilarity across all sites consider- ing all species. Overall, across all sites, we found random phylogenetic relationships among alien and native species. We found significant phylogenetic clustering in the most disturbed site (ROAD) for the two sets of species: all (alien and natives) and only native species. We conclude that clustering of phylogenetic relationships among alien and native species is only evident at small (intra-site) sampling scales in environments subject to high levels of disturbance (i.e., roadsides) in the studied Pampean Grasslands, suggesting that environmental filtering plays an important role in local community assembly.

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