Abstract
This study sought to reconstruct the history of Lantana invasion and spread in India by considering two questions; (a) from where, by who, and when were Lantana species introduced into India? and (b) given its long history in the country, is it still spreading or more or less stable? We critically evaluated the archival and historical information on plant imports by the European powers into India during the period before and after British colonization. We then reconstructed the path of spread by analyzing the spatio-temporal patterns of occurrence and distribution of Lantana in India at both the national and local scale using a GIS platform. The spread of Lantana across the globe started as early as the 1690s. The European colonial powers moved the plants from Latin America to Europe and to their colonial countries in the early 1800s. Lantana species were introduced in India from 1807 onwards and thereafter the colonial powers moved this plant across the country. Following its introduction into India, the spread of Lantana across the country, either through subsequent multiple introductions from Europe to different British cantonments, or through moving the plants between cantonments within India, were reasonably rapid spanning only a few decades. In the absence of a rigorous control program, the spread of Lantana has gone on unabated and thereby impacting both wildlife and biodiversity.
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Acknowledgments
We are thankful to Dr. M. Sanjappa, Former Director of Botanical Survey of India, Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan, University of Delhi and Dr. Swati Shresth, ATREE, New Delhi for their critical input on this manuscript and Dr. Sampth Kumar, Scientist, Herbarium, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew and Dr. Rebecca Kent to access the herbarium sheets in the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, UK. Mr. Kiran and Pranitha Sambhus, Ecoinformatics Lab, ATREE provided valuable inputs in developing maps and in particular developing ENM map. We thank Mr. Sachidananda Joshi for providing contact details of retired forest officers. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this manuscript. This work was partially supported by a grant from the South African National Research Foundation, Rainforest Concern, UK and Jamshedji Tata Trust, Mumbai.
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Kannan, R., Shackleton, C.M. & Uma Shaanker, R. Reconstructing the history of introduction and spread of the invasive species, Lantana, at three spatial scales in India. Biol Invasions 15, 1287–1302 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0365-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0365-z