PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 73: Invasive Species VI: Terrestrial.
Presiding: S DeWalt
Thursday, August 7. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Meeting Room 204.
Invasion of Pontoscolex corethrurus in a tropical forest of Taiwan.
Zou, Xiaoming*,1, 2, Huang, Qingyu3, Hou, Lucy3, 1 Kunming Section, Kunming, Yunnan, P. C. China2 Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies, San Juan, PR, USA3 Department of Biology, Tainan, Taiwan, R. O. China
ABSTRACT- There are few tropical soil fauna as invasive as earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus. The invasion of P. corethrurus was widely reported in tropical ecosystems under human influence. We found that P. corethrurus was progressively invading a tropical forest in the Najenshan National Park of southern Taiwan. Earthworm density reached 400-600 individuals per square meter in places with the exotic species as compared with less than 100 individuals per square meter in places without the exotic earthworms. The invasion of P. corethrurus reduced the density and diversity of native earthworms and enhanced the efflux of carbon dioxide from soil to atmosphere by 10-20%. Invasive P. corethrurus may alter tropical forests by reducing soil faunal diversity and by elevating atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Key words: earthworms, Pontoscolex corethrurus, tropics, Taiwan