Invasion Risk of Typical Invasive Alien Plants in Mountainous Areas and Their Interrelationship with Habitat Quality: A Case Study of Badong County in Central China

Abstract

Invasive alien species (IASs) are a key factor in the loss of regional biodiversity, and exploring the risk of IASs and their interrelationships with biodiversity is of great significance for preventing IASs in a region and enhancing ecological quality. In this study, we used Badong County, where the Wuling Mountains, Wu Mountains, and the remaining Daba Mountains converge in central China, as an example and analyzed the potential distribution areas of invasive alien plants (IAPs) and habitat quality based on field survey data from 79 sites using models, including the MaxEnt and InVEST models. The distribution of the four typical IAPs in Badong County was similar, and the high and medium suitability areas were basically distributed in the north-central area of Badong County, which was densely populated and had a low elevation and well-developed river and water systems. The combined medium and high suitability areas accounted for 22.30% of the whole area, and the climatic factors that most influenced the distribution of the four IAPs were all related to temperature. The average habitat quality index in Badong County was 0.81, indicating a generally high habitat quality. Spatially, habitat quality in northern townships was significantly lower than that in southern townships. Both the invasion risk of individual IAPs and the comprehensive invasion risk were spatially negatively correlated with habitat quality; areas of high habitat quality and low invasion risk had the largest proportion, followed by areas of low habitat quality and high invasion risk. Competition between species would reduce the negative relationship between the comprehensive IAP invasion risk and habitat quality to a certain extent, with higher IAP invasion levels having greater negative impacts on habitat quality. The findings of this study can be used to anticipate the prevalence of typical IAPs in Badong County, thereby providing a foundation for preventing and controlling IASs in this region and offering a scientific reference for the study of interrelationships between IASs and biodiversity.

Keywords: Invasion species, Habitat quality, MaxEnt model, Invasion risk, Biodiversity