Alien plants growing together threatening tiger habitats: Study
- January 21, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Alien plants growing together threatening tiger habitats: Study
Subject : Environment
Section : Biodiversity
Context:
- Several alien invasive plants growing together can have a detrimental effect on the biodiversities in tiger habitats
- The study is conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India.
Alien species as a threat to the Indian biodiversity:
- The plants can put pressure on native forage plants and drive away wild herbivores — the food source for the big cats.
- India’s biodiverse ecosystems are threatened by a variety of alien plants like Lantana Camara, Parthenium hysterophorous, Prosopis juliflora, etc, introduced during British colonisation.
- Lantana alone has pervasively invaded 44 per cent of India’s forests.
- Co-occurring invasive plants like Lantana, Ageratum conyzoides, Pogostemon benghalensis, etc, have a magnified cumulative impact than their individual impacts, causing ecological homogenisation in invaded regions.
- Affects the soil nutrients.
- Native wild herbivores like chital and sambhar did not prefer the commonly found plants in invaded areas.
What does the study suggest?
- Reduced forage availability for herbivores like sambar and chital, which are major prey for tiger, leopard, and dhole in this landscape, threaten the sustenance of these carnivores in invaded regions.
- It is indicative of an ‘invasion-centric forest ecosystem’.
- It is necessary to prioritise restoration investments in the least invaded regions to retain native biodiversity and slowly upscale such restored habitats
- The study highlighted the importance of investments in scientific restoration in India to mitigate the impacts of biological invasions.