EXOTIC AND NATIVE VEGETATION ESTABLISHMENT FOLLOWING CHANNELIZATION OF A WESTERN IBERIAN RIVER

Channelization is often a major cause of human impacts on river systems. It affects both hydrogeomorphic features and habitat characteristics and potentially impacts riverine flora and fauna. Human-disturbed fluvial ecosystems also appear to be particularly vulnerable to exotic plant establishment. Following a 12-year recovery period, the distribution, composition and cover of both exotic and native plant species were studied along a Portuguese lowland river segment, which had been subjected to resectioning, straightening and two-stage bank reinforcement, and were compared with those of a nearby, less impacted segment. The species distribution was also related to environmental data. Species richness and floristic composition in the channelized river segment were found to be similar to those at the more ‘natural’ river sites. Floral differences were primarily consistent with the dominance of cover by certain species. However, there were significant differences in exotic and native species richness and cover between the ‘natural’ corridor and the channelized segment, which was more susceptible to invasion by exotic perennial taxa, such as Eryngium pandanifolium, Paspalum paspalodes, Tradescantia fluminensis and Acacia dealbata. Factorial and canonical correspondence analyses revealed considerable patchiness in the distribution of species assemblages. The latter were associated with small differences in substrate composition and their own relative position across the banks and along the river segments in question. Data was also subjected to an unweighted pair-group arithmetic average clustering, and the Indicator Value methodology was applied to selected cluster noda in order to obtain significant indicator species. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.