Prediction
of environmental suitability for invasion of
Mikania
micrantha in India by species distribution modelling
N. Rameshprabu
and P.S. Swamy*
Department of
Plant Science, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai-625 021, India
*Corresponding
Author?s E-mail: swamyps@yahoo.co.in
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Publication Data
Paper received:
25 November 2013
Revised received:
07 April 2014
Accepted:
03 June 2014
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Abstract
Environmental
niche modelling was used to assess the invasion of Mikania micrantha
H.B.K, an extremely fast growing, perennial vine and one of the world's most
notorious invaders. It has spread in many parts of India, especially
south-west and north-eastern states and caused severe damage to tree crops
and agroforestry plantations in moist tropical zones. Using known occurrence
points, the environmental suitability for the risk of invasion of M.
micrantha in India was predicted using three species distribution models
(BioClim, GARP and MaxEnt). From the three models, BioClim and GARP showed
higher accuracy whereas MaxEnt showed comparatively lower accuracy. The
Jackknife evaluation result indicated that Bio 13 (Precipitation of wettest
period) and Bio 3 (Isothermality) were having high percentage of contribution
for spread of M. micrantha. This species showed most significant (p ≤
0.001) difference in distribution frequency along the altitudinal gradient
and climatic zone. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a decline in the
frequency of occurrence with an increase in altitude.
Key
words
Bio
Clim, GARP, Gtest , Invasive plant, MaxEnt
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