Protected areas play an important role as refuges from invasive species impacts on biodiversity. Within the MOSAIK (Monitoring Savanna Biodiversity in the Kruger National Park) project, plant species were recorded in a representative set of 60 plots, 50 × 50 m in size, across the entire KNP, distributed so as to cover a range of savanna habitats, i.e. perennial rivers, seasonal rivers and dry crests, and two main bedrock types (granite and basalt). The data were used to assess the role of rivers in the dispersal of alien plants and study whether the alien plant species spread from rivers to open dry savanna. The resulting dataset provided the first thorough information on the spatial distribution of naturalised alien plants in KNP. In total, we recorded 20 plant species that are alien to the park, four of them considered invasive: Parthenium hysterophorus, Opuntia stricta, Xanthium strumarium and Zinnia peruviana. The most widespread species in KNP was Tridax procumbens, recorded in 11 plots (i.e. 18% of all sampled), four other species were found in > 10% of the plots. One species, Bidens bipinnata, was not previously reported from the park and represents a new record. The majority of aliens were concentrated along perennial rivers (60% of all occurrences), but some were repeatedly recorded at seasonal rivers as well and two of the most invasive species in KNP, Opuntia stricta and Parthenium hysterophorus, occurred also on dry crests away from water. The average number of alien species per plot was low (1.6), as was their mean percentage contribution to all species in a plot (2.2%), but some plots harboured as many as seven species and contributed up to 11.9%. Moreover, only 21 plots (35%) were alien-species free. In terms of the total species number per habitat, perennial rivers had significantly more aliens than crests and were marginally significantly richer than seasonal rivers. By recording all naturalised alien species occurring in the plots – many of them are not invasive but may become so in the future – and by using the GloNAF database of global distribution of naturalised species, we assessed the invasion potential of the recorded species.

中文翻译：

---

进入广阔空间：克鲁格国家公园中的外来植物是否会从河流传播到干燥的稀树草原？

保护区作为避难所免受入侵物种对生物多样性影响的重要作用。在MOSAIK（在克鲁格国家公园中监测热带稀树草原生物多样性）项目中，在整个KNP上有代表性的60个样地（50×50 m）中记录了植物物种，分布范围覆盖了许多稀树草原生境，即常年河流，季节性河流和干c以及两种主要基岩类型（花岗岩和玄武岩）。这些数据用于评估河流在外来植物扩散中的作用，并研究外来植物物种是否从河流扩散到干燥的稀树草原。最终的数据集提供了有关KNP中外来植物的空间分布的第一个详尽信息。总共，我们记录了公园外来的20种植物，其中有4种被认为具有入侵性：Parthenium hysterophorus，Omuntia stricta，Xanthium strumarium和百日草百日草。KNP中分布最广的物种是三角龙（Tridax procumbens），记录在11个样地中（即，占所有采样的18％），另外四个物种在大于10％的样地中被发现。以前没有从公园报告过一个物种Bidens bipinnata，这是一个新记录。大多数外星人都集中在常年河沿岸（占所有事件的60％），但也有一些人在季节性河道上屡屡记录，而KNP中入侵性最强的两个物种，即仙人掌（Opuntia stricta）和爬山虎（Parthenium hysterophorus），也出现在远离海岸的干c上。水。每个地块的外来物种平均数量很低（1.6），它们对一个地块中所有物种的平均贡献百分比也很低（2.2％），但是有些地块拥有多达7种，贡献率高达11.9％。此外，只有21个地块（占35％）没有外来物种。就每个栖息地的物种总数而言，多年生河流的外来物种明显多于波峰，而比季节性河流要丰富得多。通过记录在样地中发生的所有归化外来物种（其中许多不是外来入侵物种，但将来可能会入侵），并使用GloNAF全球归化物种分布数据库，我们评估了所记录物种的入侵潜力。