PARENT SESSION
Symposium 2: Biological Invasions: Species Exchanges Between Eastern Asia and North America.
Organized by: YD Choi, RN Mack, S Maio, and H Li
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Oregon Ballroom 203.
The status, control and research on invasive exotic plants in Korea.
Lee, Eun Ju*,1, Park, H1, Chung, Seungho1, Lee, Hyo Hye Mi1, Kim, In Sung1, 1 Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
ABSTRACT- Recently, the amount of exotic plants shipped into Korea has been rapidly increased due to the active international trade as well as the increase in the number of travelers to foreign countries. In addition to that, the recently made disturbed area provided the spaces for the exotic plants to be established. As of 2002, total of 267 species of exotic plants has been reported in South Korea. Some of them have been known to harmful to native plants and animals including human beings. For risk assessment of exotic plants in Korea, a ranking system for alien plants has been suggested. It contains invasiveness and dispersal potential of exotic plants and its impacts on endemic plants, hybridization, ecosystems and environments. To verify this risk assessment system, we selected four most wide spread exotic plants in Korea and carried out removal experiments in the field. Four invasive exotic plants were Rumex acetocella, Taraxacum officinale, Ageratina altissima and Ambrosia artemisiifolia. We observed general growth characteristics of four species in 10 quadrats and measured physical and chemical properties of habitats. In the middle of growing season, we removed experimental plants by hands and mowing machines and compared their impacts on recovering of exotic plants and native plants with control sites. We used Remove-Recover Index (RRI) to measure removal effects on recovering exotic plants. T. officinale (0.34) and R. acetocella (0.37) showed higher RRI while A. altissima (0.09) and A. artemissifolia (0.04) had lower RRI during the experiment period. Hand removal showed better results in our experiment. Impacts of removal of exotic plants on native plants were distinctive in each species.
Key words: risk assessment, Korea, invasive plant, removal experiment