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High abundance of introduced plants on ancient Native American middens

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Abstract

Past land uses by humans can have long-term effects on natural communities. To test the hypothesis that past land use can alter patterns of biological invasion for extended times, we predicted that middens abandoned by Native Americans over a century ago would have high abundances of introduced plants. We measured cover of vascular species and soil characteristics on and off the eight remaining middens in grasslands along 20 km of the northern coast of California. Relative cover of introduced plants was about 20% higher on than off middens, and cover of introduced annuals was about 110% higher. Concentration of inorganic N in the upper soil was twice as high on as off middens and explained about 40% of the variation in cover of introduced annuals. Abundance of shells on middens was correlated with inorganic N, suggesting that present invasion was linked to intensity of past land use. Results confirm that ancient land use by Native Americans is associated with present-day invasion by introduced plants and suggest that persistent elevation of soil N is partly responsible. Land use that elevates nutrient levels may promote invasion far into the future.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Claudia Luke, Brendan O’Neil, Breck Parkman, Jackie Sones, the California State Parks, and the University of California Bodega Marine Reserve for help locating middens and for access to study sites; Albert Carranza, Taraneh Emam, and Susan Williams for help and facilities for soil analyses; Peter Connors for help with plant identification; and two anonymous reviewers for comments. Research was supported by USDA grants CREES 2001-35320-10629 and 2006-34439-17024, by the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program at Bodega Marine Laboratory, and by a Torrey Scholarship from the Plant Biology Graduate Program at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. This is contribution 2465 from the University of California Bodega Marine Laboratory.

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  1. Biology Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Todd Karalius & Peter Alpert

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  1. Todd Karalius
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  2. Peter Alpert
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Correspondence to Peter Alpert.

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Karalius, T., Alpert, P. High abundance of introduced plants on ancient Native American middens. Biol Invasions 12, 1125–1132 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-009-9530-4

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