Adil GÜNER, Vehbi ESER - optima

IMPACT OF THE INVASIVE CARPOBROTUS EDULIS ON ARMERIA
PSEUDARMERIA AT CABO DA ROCA
Carolina PINTO-RICARDO 1 , Dalila ESPIRITO-SANTO 2 , Isabel CARRASQUINHO 3 ,
Maria Manuela VELOSO 3 , Cândido Pinto RICARDO 4
1 St Julian´s School, Carcavelos, Lisbon; carolinafvpt@hotmail.com
2 Centro de Botânica Aplicada à Agricultura, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, UTL, Lisboa, Portugal
dalilaesanto@isa.utl.pt
3 Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária – Oeiras, Oeiras – Portugal;
isabel.carrasquinho@efn.com.pt; mveloso.inrb@gmail.com
4 Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, UNL, Oeiras, Portugal; ricardo@itqb.unl.pt
Armeria pseudarmeria (Murray) Mansfeld is an endemic plant of Portugal, mainly found in
the Sintra region at Cabo da Roca. It has been considered a threatened species for the last
twenty years and according to the Red List of Threatened Plants published in 1997 by IUCN
is “Endangered”.
Carpobrotus edulis (L.) N. E. Br. is an invasive plant from South Africa introduced in
Portugal during the 19 th century that nowadays dominates a vast area of the country. Some
references suggest the negative impact of C. edulis on A.pseudarmeria located at Cabo da
Roca.
The aim of this work is to study the impact of C. edulis on A.pseudarmeria by analysing two
nearby populations of Cabo da Roca, one free (site 1), the other growing together with C.
edulis (site 2).
In an area of 400 m 2 from each site the native species were identified, the Armeria clusters
were counted and the cluster and leaf sizes were quantified.
Site 1 is characterized by a great diversity of native species together with Armeria, which coexists
among them, except in small patches where a few woody species grow and dominate.
Site 2 is dramatically dominated by C. edulis, which completely covers not only the whole
site, but also a vast area much beyond. It is also notorious a drastic reduction in other plant
species, besides Armeria. Only a few representatives of the species identified for site 1 could
be observed at site 2.
The statistical analyses of the results indicate that, in fact, the presence of C. edulis affects the
population of A. pseudarmeria in relation to both size of clusters and of leaves (length and
width). However, in what concerns the number of clusters, there is no significant difference
between the two sites.
Keywords: Plumbaginacea, Aizoaceae, endangered plant, endemic plant, plant/plant
interaction
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