Impact of invasive alien plant species, Lantana camara, on the species composition, richness and evenness of invaded plant communities in Sidama, Gamogofa and Gedio Zones, Ethiopia

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Abstract Invasive alien species represent one of the major threats to biodiversity and all economic sectors. Lantana camara has been ranked as the highest impacting invasive plant species in the study areas. However, its impact on diversity and composition of invaded plant communities has not been well studied. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the impact of Lantana camara on species diversity and composition of invaded plant communities in the study areas. A total of 120, 10m X 10m plots were sampled so as to examine its effects of invasions on the species diversity and composition of invaded communities. A total of 109 species were found in the non-invaded areas as compared to 56 in the invaded areas. The number of species decreased by 48.6% in Lantana camara invaded areas as compared to the control. The mean evenness values of the entire invaded sampled study site and that of the control were 0.24 and 0.81 respectively. Thus, the heterogeneity of the invaded study sites was reduced by 57%. The number of plant families was 44 in the control areas in contrast to only 30 in the invaded areas. The number of plant families decreased by 31.8% in the invaded areas as compared to the control. Therefore, it was noted that Lantana camara has a serious impact on plant diversity hence the finding calls for an urgent management and control strategy against the spread of Lantana camara so as to save the ongoing threat to biodiversity.

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