Road and railway networks are pervasive elements of all environments, which have expanded intensively over the last century in all European countries. These transportation infrastructures have major impacts on the surrounding landscape, representing a threat to biodiversity. Roadsides and railways may function as corridors for dispersal of alien species in fragmented landscapes. However, only few studies have explored the spread of invasive species in relationship to transport network at large spatial scales. We performed a spatial mismatch analysis, based on a spatially explicit correlation test, to investigate whether alien plant species hotspots in Germany and Austria correspond to areas of high density of roads and railways. We tested this independently of the effects of dominant environments in each spatial unit, in order to focus just on the correlation between occurrence of alien species and density of linear transportation infrastructures. We found a significant spatial association between alien plant species hotspots distribution and roads and railways density in both countries. As expected, anthropogenic landscapes, such as urban areas, harbored more alien plant species, followed by water bodies. However, our findings suggested that the distribution of neobiota is strongest correlated to road/railways density than to land use composition. This study provides new evidence, from a transnational scale, that alien plants can use roadsides and rail networks as colonization corridors. Furthermore, our approach contributes to the understanding on alien plant species distribution at large spatial scale by the combination with spatial modeling procedures.

Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Spatial Planning Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Prague Czech Republic

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Grimm NB, Foster D, Groffman P, Grove JM, Hopkinson CS, Nadelhoffer KJ, et al. The changing landscape: ecosystem responses to urbanization and pollution across climatic and societal gradients. Front Ecol Environ. 2008;6: 264–272. doi: 10.1890/070147 DOI

Seiler A. Ecological Effects of Roads A review. Uppsala; 2001. pp. 1–40.

Sala OE. Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science. 2000;287: 1770–1774. doi: 10.1126/science.287.5459.1770 PubMed DOI

Sanderson EW, Jaiteh M, Levy MA, Redford KH, Wannebo A V., Woolmer G. The Human footprint and the last of the wild. Bioscience. American Institute of Biological Sciences; 2002;52: 891–904. doi: 10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0891:THFATL]2.0.CO;2 DOI

OECD. Environment at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing; 2013.

Blackburn TM, Essl F, Evans T, Hulme PE, Jeschke JM, Kühn I, et al. A unified classification of alien species based on the magnitude of their environmental impacts. PLoS Biol. 2014;12: e1001850 doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001850 PubMed DOI PMC

Taramarcaz P, Lambelet C, Clot B, Keimer C, Hauser C. Ragweed (Ambrosia) progression and its health risks: Will Switzerland resist this invasion? Swiss Med Wkly. 2005;135: 538–548. 2005/37/smw-11201 PubMed

Bacaro G, Maccherini S, Chiarucci A, Jentsch A, Rocchini D, Torri D, et al. Distributional patterns of endemic, native and alien species along a roadside elevation gradient in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Community Ecol. 2015;16: 223–234. doi: 10.1556/168.2015.16.2.10 DOI

Trombulak SC, Frissell CA. Review of ecological effects of roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conserv Biol. 2000;14: 18–30.

Mortensen D a, Rauschert ESJ, Nord AN, Jones BP. Forest roads facilitate the spread of invasive plants. Invasive Plant Sci Manag. 2009;2: 191–199. doi: 10.1614/IPSM-08-125.1 DOI

Joly M, Bertrand P, Gbangou RY, White M-C, Dubé J, Lavoie C. Paving the Way for Invasive Species: Road Type and the Spread of Common Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia). Environ Manage. 2011;48: 514–522. doi: 10.1007/s00267-011-9711-7 PubMed DOI

Meunier G, Lavoie C. Roads as Corridors for Invasive Plant Species: New Evidence from Smooth Bedstraw (Galium mollugo). Invasive Plant Sci Manag. Cambridge University Press; 2012;5: 92–100. doi: 10.1614/IPSM-D-11-00049.1 DOI

Fernández-Murillo MP, Rico A, Kindlmann P. Exotic plants along roads near La Paz, Bolivia. Weed Res. 2015;55: 565–573. doi: 10.1111/wre.12174 DOI

Bernes C, Bullock JM, Jakobsson S, Rundlöf M, Verheyen K, Lindborg R. How are biodiversity and dispersal of species affected by the management of roadsides? A systematic map protocol. Environ Evid. 2016;5: 4 doi: 10.1186/s13750-016-0055-x DOI

Štajerová K, Šmilauer P, Brůna J, Pyšek P. Distribution of invasive plants in urban environment is strongly spatially structured. Landsc Ecol. 2017;

Forman RTT, Alexander LE. Roads and their major ecological effects. Annu Rev Ecol Syst. 1998;29: 207–231.

Forman RTT, Sperling D, Bissonette JA, Clevenger AP, Cutshall CD, Dale VH, et al. Road ecology Science and solutions. Washington, D.C., USA: Island Press; 2003.

Kociolek A V, Clevenger AP, St Clair CC, Proppe DS. Effects of road networks on bird populations. Conserv Biol. 2011;25: 241–9. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01635.x PubMed DOI

Oduor AMO. Evolutionary responses of native plant species to invasive plants: A review. New Phytol. 2013;200: 986–992. doi: 10.1111/nph.12429 PubMed DOI

Skurski TC, Rew LJ, Maxwell BD, Skurski TC, Rew LJ, Maxwell BD. Mechanisms underlying nonindigenous plant impacts: A review of recent experimental research. Invasive Plant Sci Manag. 2014;7: 432–444. doi: 10.1614/IPSM-D-13-00099.1 DOI

Pyšek P, Hulme P. Spatio-temporal dynamics of plant invasions: linking pattern to process. Ecoscience. 2005;12: 302–315.

Theoharides K, Dukes J. Plant invasion across space and time: factors affecting nonindigenous species success during four stages of invasion. New Phytol. 2007;176: 256–273. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2007.02207.x PubMed DOI

Souza L, Bunn WA, Simberloff D, Lawton RM, Sanders NJ. Biotic and abiotic influences on native and exotic richness relationship across spatial scales: Favourable environments for native species are highly invasible. Funct Ecol. 2011;25: 1106–1112. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2011.01857.x DOI

Mitchell CE, Agrawal AA, Bever JD, Gilbert GS, Hufbauer RA, Klironomos JN, et al. Biotic interactions and plant invasions. Ecol Lett. 2006;9: 726–740. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00908.x PubMed DOI

Haugo RD, Bakker JD, Halpern CB. Role of biotic interactions in regulating conifer invasion of grasslands. For Ecol Manage. 2013;289: 175–182. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.10.019 DOI

Kosaka Y, Saikia B, Mingki T, Tag H, Riba T, Ando K. Roadside Distribution Patterns of Invasive Alien Plants Along an Altitudinal Gradient in Arunachal Himalaya, India. Mt Res Dev. 2010;30: 252–258. doi: 10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-10-00036.1 DOI

Lembrechts J, Milbau A, Nijs I. Alien Roadside Species More Easily Invade Alpine than Lowland Plant Communities in a Subarctic Mountain Ecosystem. PLoS One. 2014;9: e102109 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0102109 PubMed DOI PMC

Okimura T, Koide D, Mori AS. Differential processes underlying the roadside distributions of native and alien plant assemblages. Biodivers Conserv. 2016;25: 995–1009. doi: 10.1007/s10531-016-1103-0 DOI

Pauchard A, Alaback P. Influence of Elevation, Land Use, and Landscape Context on Patterns of Alien Plant Invasions along Roadsides in Protected Areas of South-Central Chile. Conserv Biol. 2004;18: 238–248. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.00300.x DOI

Lembrechts JJ, Milbau A, Nijs I. Alien Roadside Species More Easily Invade Alpine than Lowland Plant Communities in a Subarctic Mountain Ecosystem. Moora M, editor. PLoS One. 2014;9: e89664 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089664 PubMed DOI PMC

Paiaro V, Cabido M, Pucheta E. Altitudinal distribution of native and alien plant species in roadside communities from central Argentina. Austral Ecol. 2011;36: 176–184. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-9993.2010.02134.x DOI

Rutkovska S, Pučka I, Evarts-Bunders P, Paidere J. The role of railway lines in the distribution of alien plant species in the territory of Daugavpils City (Latvia). Est J Ecol. 2013;62: 212–225. doi: 10.3176/eco.2013.3.03 DOI

Flory SL, Clay K. Effects of roads and forest successional age on experimental plant invasions. Biol Conserv. Elsevier Ltd; 2009;142: 2531–2537. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.05.024 DOI

Maděra P, Kovář P, Vojta J, Volařík D, Úradníček L, Salašová A, et al. Vegetation Succession Along New Roads at Soqotra Island (Yemen): Effects of Invasive Plant Species and Utilization of Selected Native Plant Resistence Against Disturbance. J Landsc Ecol. 2013;6 doi: 10.2478/jlecol-2014-0003 DOI

Pauchard A, Alaback PB. Influences of evaluation, land use and landscape context on patterns of alien plant invasions along roadsides in protected areas of south -central Chile. Conserv Biol. 2004;18: 238–248. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.00300.x DOI

Dostálek J, Frantík T, Šilarová V. Changes in the distribution of alien plants along roadsides in relation to adjacent land use over the course of 40 years. Plant Biosyst—An Int J Deal with all Asp Plant Biol. 2016;150: 442–448. doi: 10.1080/11263504.2014.986244 DOI

Lembrechts JJ, Milbau A, Nijs I. Alien roadside species more easily invade alpine than lowland plant communities in a subarctic mountain ecosystem. PLoS One. 2014;9: 1–10. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089664 PubMed DOI PMC

Penone C, Machon N, Julliard R, Le Viol I. Do railway edges provide functional connectivity for plant communities in an urban context? Biol Conserv. 2012;148: 126–133. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.041 DOI

Hansen MJ, Clevenger AP. The influence of disturbance and habitat on the presence of non-native plant species along transport corridors. Biol Conserv. 2005;125: 249–259. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2005.03.024 DOI

Ozaslan C, Farooq S, Onen H. Do Railways Contribute To Plant Invasion in Turkey. J "Agriculture For. 2016;62: 285–298. doi: 10.17707/AgricultForest.62.3.23 DOI

Chytrý M, Pyšek P, Wild J, Pino J, Maskell LC, Vilà M. European map of alien plant invasions based on the quantitative assessment across habitats. Divers Distrib. 2009;15: 98–107. doi: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00515.x DOI

Turbelin AJ, Malamud BD, Francis RA. Mapping the global state of invasive alien species: patterns of invasion and policy responses. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2016;26: 78–92. doi: 10.1111/geb.12517 DOI

EEA. Actual and potential future alien plant invasion hotspots under two emissions scenarios. In: European Environment Agency [Internet]. 2012. http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/actual-and-potential-future-alien

Kleinbauer I, Dullinger S, Peterseil J, Essl F. Climate change might drive the invasive tree Robinia pseudacacia into nature reserves and endangered habitats. Biol Conserv. 2010;143: 382–390. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.10.024 DOI

ESRI. ArcGIS Desktop: Release 10.1. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute; Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute; 2012.

Bossard M, Feranec J, Othael J. CORINE land cover technical guide—Addendum. European Environment Agency Technical Report 40. Copenhagen; 2000.

Silverman BW. Density estimation for statistics and data analysis Monographs. Chapman and Hall/CRC, editor. New York: Chapman and Hall; 1986.

EEA. Corine Land Cover Report—Part 2: Nomenclature. 1994.

Morelli F, Pruscini F, Santolini R, Perna P, Benedetti Y, Sisti D. Landscape heterogeneity metrics as indicators of bird diversity: Determining the optimal spatial scales in different landscapes. Ecol Indic. 2013;34: 372–379. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.05.021 DOI

Triola MF. Elementary Statistics. 12th Editi Pearson International; 2012.

Mantel N. The detection of disease clustering and a generalized regression approach. Cancer Res. 1967;27: 209–220. PubMed

Fortin M, Payette S. How to test the significance of the relation between spatially autocorrelated data at the landscape scale: a case study using fire and forest maps. Ecoscience. 2002;9: 213–218.

Legendre P, Legendre L. Numerical Ecology. third Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2012.

Kissling WD, Carl G. Spatial autocorrelation and the selection of simultaneous autoregressive models. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2008;17: 59–71. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2007.00334.x DOI

Oksanen J, Guillaume Blanchet F, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O’Hara BR, et al. Vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package version 2.3–4. 2016. p. 291.

McCullagh P, Nelder JA. Generalized Linear Models. London: Chapman and Hall; 1989.

Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S. Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4. J Stat Softw. 2015;67: 1–48.

Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S. Lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4—R Package. 2014.

Graham MH. Confronting multicollinearity in ecological multiple regression. Ecology. 2003;84: 2809–2815. doi: 10.1890/02-3114 DOI

Nakazawa M. “fmsb” Functions for Medical Statistics Book with some Demographic Data—R Package. 2017.

Venables WN, Ripley BD. Modern Applied Statistics with S. Fourth Edi New York, NY, USA: Springer; 2002.

Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook 2013–14. [Internet]. Washington, DC; 2013. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

Steyn C, Greve M, Robertson MP, Kalwij JM, le Roux PC, le Roux PC. Alien plant species that invade high elevations are generalists: support for the directional ecological filtering hypothesis. Botta-Dukát Z, editor. J Veg Sci. 2016;28: 337–346. doi: 10.1111/jvs.12477 DOI

Burnham KP, Anderson DR. Model selection and multimodel inference: A practical information-theoretic approach. 2 edition New York, NY, USA: Springer, Verlag; 2002.

Hosmer DW, Lemeshow S. Applied Logistic Regression. Walter A. Shewhart SSW, editor. 2005.

Nakagawa S, Schielzeth H. A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from generalized linear mixed-effects models. Methods Ecol Evol. 2013;4: 133–142. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210x.2012.00261.x DOI

Perez-Neto P, Legendre P, Dray S, Borcard D. Variation partitioning of species data matrices: estimation and comparison of fractions. Ecology. 2006;87: 2614–2625. PubMed

Borcard D, Legendre P, Drapeau P. Partialling out the Spatial Component of Ecological Variation. Ecology. 1992;73: 1045–1055. doi: 10.2307/1940179 DOI

R Development Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria; 2017.

Manly BFJ. Randomization, Bootstrap and Monte Carlo Methods in Biology, Third Edition 3°. New York, NY: Chapman and Hall/CRC; 2006.

Stotz GC, Gianoli E, Patchell MJ, Cahill JF. Differential responses of native and exotic plant species to an invasive grass are driven by variation in biotic and abiotic factors. Collins B, editor. J Veg Sci. 2017;28: 325–336. doi: 10.1111/jvs.12499 DOI

Claridge K, Franklin SB. Compensation and plasticity in an invasive plant species. Biol Invasions. 2003;4: 339–347.

Ibáñez I, Silander JA Jr, Allen JM, Treanor SA, Wilson A. Identifying hotspots for plant invasions and forecasting focal points of further spread. J Appl Ecol. 2009;46: 1219–1228. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01736.x DOI

Fletcher CS, Westcott DA. Dispersal and the design of effective management strategies for plant invasions: matching scales for success. Ecol Appl. 2013;23: 1881–92. Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24555314 PubMed

Pyšek P, Chytrý M, Jarošík V. Habitats and land-use as determinants of plant invasions in the temperate zone of Europe Bioinvasions Glob Ecol Econ Manag policy. Oxford Univ Press, Oxford: 2010; 66–79.

Lu Z, Ma K. Spread of the exotic croftonweed (Eupatorium adenophorum) across southwest China along roads and streams. Weed Sci. 2006;54: 1068–1072. doi: 10.1614/WS-06-040R1.1 DOI

Watkins RZ, Chen J, Pickens J, Brosofske KD. Effects of forest roads on understory plants in a managed hardwood landscape. Conserv Biol. 2003;17: 411–419. doi: 10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.01285.x DOI

Spellerberg IF. Ecological effects of roads and traffic: a literature review. Glob Ecol Biogeogr Lett. 1998;7: 317–333.

Rowland M, Vojta C. A technical guide for monitoring wildlife habitat. United States Dep Agric. 2013; 403.

Wisdom MJ, Rowland MM, Tausch RJ. Effective management strategies for sage-grouse and sagebrush: a question of triage? Transactions, North American Wildlife and Natural Resource Conference. 2005. pp. 145–159.

Seebens H, Blackburn TM, Dyer E, Genovesi P, Hulme PE, Jeschke JM, et al. No saturation in the accumulation of alien species worldwide. Nat Commun. 2017; 1–9. PubMed PMC

Ibisch PL, Hoffmann MT, Kreft S, Pe’er G, Kati V, Biber-Freudenberger L, et al. A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status. Science. 2016;354 doi: 10.1126/science.aaf7166 PubMed DOI