Biological invasion in Serra de Itabaiana National Park, Sergipe, Brazil.

Abstract

The Serra de Itabaiana National Park is a Conservation Unit that was created on June 15, 2005. Despite its high species richness, it is threatened due to a series of factors, among them the presence of non-native species. In view of this reality, the present work sought to answer the following questions: (i)how many and which are the invasive naturalized and exotic species that occur in the Serra de Itabaiana National Park? (ii) how are these species distributed on the site? The non-native species (naturalized and invasive exotic) were collected, herborized and deposited in the ASE herbarium. With the georeferencing data, a map of invasion patches was created using the Google Fusion Tables program. Altogether, 49 species were sampled, distributed in 45 genera and 19 families. Among them, 16 species were considered naturalized and 33 invasive exotic ones. It was also observed that the sites with the largest species spots are associated especially with anthropized environments. The results of the present study are alarming due to the large number of non-native species and especially the presence of taxa that cause different environmental impacts.