School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GP, UK; Joint Research Unit CTFC - AGROTECNIO - CERCA, Av. Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, E25198, Lleida, Spain; Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, University of Lleida, Av. Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, E25198, Lleida, Spain.
School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GP, UK.
J Environ Manage. 2023 Sep 15;342:118273. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118273. Epub 2023 Jun 1.
There is a clear need for the development of management strategies to control dominant, perennial weeds and restore semi-natural communities and an important part of this is to know how long control treatments take to be effective and how long they last after treatments stop. Here, we report the results from a 17-year long experiment where we compared the effects of five control treatments on dense Pteridium aquilinum (L. Kuhn) relative to an untreated experimental-control in Derbyshire, UK. The experiment was run in two phases. In Phase 1 (2005-2012) we controlled the P. aquilinum by cutting and bruising, both twice and thrice annually, and a herbicide treatment (asulam in year 1, followed by annual spot-re-treatment of all emergent fronds). In Phase 2 (2012-2021) all treatments were stopped, and the vegetation was allowed to develop naturally. Between 2005 and 2021 we monitored P. aquilinum performance annually and full plant species composition at intervals. Here, we concentrate on analysing the Phase 2 data where we used regression approaches to model individual species responses through time and unconstrained ordination to compare treatment effects on the entire species composition over both Phases. Remote sensing was also used to assess edge invasion in 2018. At the end of Phase 1, a good reduction of P. aquilinum and restoration of acid-grassland was achieved for the asulam and cutting treatments, but not for bruising. In Phase 2, P. aquilinum increased through time in all treated plots but the asulam and cutting ones maintained a much lower P. aquilinum performance for nine years on all measures assessed. There was a reduction in species richness and richness fluctuations, especially in graminoid species. However, multivariate analysis showed that the asulam and cutting treatments were stationed some distance from the untreated and bruising treatments with no apparent sign of reversions suggesting an Alternative Stable State had been created, at least over this nine-year period. P. aquilinum reinvasion was mainly from plot edges. The use of repeated P. aquilinum control treatments, either through an initial asulam spray with annual follow-up spot-spraying or cutting twice or thrice annually for eight years gave good P. aquilinum control and helped restore an acid-grassland community. Edge reinvasion was detected, and it is recommended that either whole-patch control be implemented or treatments should be continued around patch edges.
需要制定管理策略来控制优势多年生杂草并恢复半自然群落，其中一个重要部分是了解控制措施需要多长时间才能有效，以及停止处理后能持续多长时间。在这里，我们报告了一项为期 17 年的实验结果，该实验比较了英国德比郡五种控制处理方法对密集型蕨类植物（L. Kuhn）的影响，与未处理的实验对照相比。该实验分两个阶段进行。在第一阶段（2005-2012 年），我们通过每年两次和三次切割和挫伤，以及使用除草剂处理（第 1 年使用草铵膦，然后每年对所有新出现的叶片进行点状处理）来控制蕨类植物。在第二阶段（2012-2021 年），停止了所有处理，让植被自然生长。在 2005 年至 2021 年期间，我们每年监测一次蕨类植物的性能，并定期监测全植物物种组成。在这里，我们专注于分析第二阶段的数据，我们使用回归方法来模拟随时间推移的单个物种响应，并使用无约束排序来比较两个阶段中整个物种组成的处理效果。还使用遥感技术于 2018 年评估边缘入侵。在第一阶段结束时，草铵膦和切割处理实现了蕨类植物的大量减少和酸性草地的恢复，但挫伤处理则没有。在第二阶段，所有处理过的地块中蕨类植物的数量随着时间的推移而增加，但在所有评估措施中，草铵膦和切割处理在九年的时间里都保持着较低的蕨类植物性能。物种丰富度和丰富度波动减少，特别是禾本科物种。然而，多变量分析表明，草铵膦和切割处理与未处理和挫伤处理的距离较远，没有明显的逆转迹象，这表明至少在这九年期间已经建立了一个替代稳定状态。蕨类植物的再入侵主要来自地块边缘。通过初始草铵膦喷雾并每年进行后续点状喷雾，或每年两次或三次切割八年，重复进行蕨类植物控制处理，可以很好地控制蕨类植物，并有助于恢复酸性草地群落。已经检测到边缘再入侵，建议要么实施全斑块控制，要么在斑块边缘周围继续进行处理。
