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Vegetation recovery after 11 years of wild boar exclusion in the Monte Desert, Argentina

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Abstract

The wild boar (Sus scrofa) is considered an ecosystem engineer. It roots up the ground looking for forage, generating patches of different sizes and without vegetation. Studies of wild boar’s impact on vegetation can be addressed in two contrasting ways: short-term effects (immediately after boar’s disturbance) and long-term effects. Short-term studies in the Monte Desert of Argentina showed that wild boar rooting modifies soil properties, reduces plant cover, and decreases plant richness and diversity. The objective of this study was to analyse the vegetation response in a desert ecosystem after 11 yr of wild boar disturbance establishing a replicated experiment of medium and large-sized animal’s exclusion. In this long-span study, time was the most important variable to predict the cover of different plant life forms and richness in disturbed soils. Herb cover was higher in disturbed soils, with grasses and woody species showing the opposite. Over the long-term, wild boar positively affect alpha diversity and richness, while the species turnover (rate of species replacement) was only influenced by the replacement of herbs. Disturbed soils were mainly dominated by annual species with a relatively high (60%) extent of species turnover. These vegetation changes throughout time are influenced by the occurrence of unexpectedly high rainy episodes, and probably by the system’s own fragility of Monte Desert.

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Fig. 1

(extracted and modified from Cuevas et al. 2012)

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to a large list of assistants for helping us do the fieldwork. To Diego Vazquez for helping us in the design of field experiment. To Daniel Dueñas for designing the map and to Yasmin Bobadilla, Soledad Albanese and a special thanks to María Eugenia Mosca for assisting us in statistical analysis. This Project was part of the EU-funded research project ALARM (Settele et al. 2005) to develop and test methods and protocols for assessment of large-scale environmental risks. Partially funded by ALARM (EU), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas—CONICET (PIP 5944), Secretaría de Ciencia y Tecnología—SECYT (PICT 11768), Argentina. FJ acknowledges the support of grant CONICYT/PIA/BASAL FB 0002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Investigaciones de la Biodiversidad (GiB) Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas (IADIZA) CCT Mendoza CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina

    M. F. Cuevas & R. A. Ojeda

  2. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas (IADIZA) CCT Mendoza CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina

    C. M. Campos

  3. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    F. M. Jaksic

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  1. M. F. Cuevas
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  2. C. M. Campos
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Correspondence to M. F. Cuevas.

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Cuevas, M.F., Campos, C.M., Ojeda, R.A. et al. Vegetation recovery after 11 years of wild boar exclusion in the Monte Desert, Argentina. Biol Invasions 22, 1607–1621 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02206-8

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