Naturalisation of Ranunculus repens in Kashmir Himalaya: Floristic and Ecological aspects

Abstract

Naturalisation is the most crucial stage along the ecological process of introduction-naturalisation-invasion continuum. Therefore, reporting the transition of alien plant species at the naturalised stage along the continuum can be crucial for the early warning and rapid response in invasion management. Here we report Ranunculus repens as a new distribution record from Kashmir Himalaya. We provide a floristic account of this newly naturalised species and photographic illustrations of the distinguishing characters from an allied species, R. bulbosus, with which it is misidentified in the region. We also investigated the ecological aspects of this naturalised species by undertaking quadrat sampling in the R. repens-dominated community. Our results revealed that R. repens show positive association with those native species in the community which possess similar traits, but show interestingly negative association with other alien species found within the same community, thus hinting towards habitat filtering among the alien species pool in the region. Hopefully, the present study will validate report of R. repens from this Himalayan region, facilitate its field identification, guide control strategies at this early stage of naturalisation when chances of management success are maximum and prompt further studies on its potential invasion risk.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2022.2036847.

Keywords:

• Alien
• biodiversity
• naturalisation
• co-occurrence
• distribution
• Himalaya

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the kind help and support provided by the staff and research scholars of BIOTA Laboratory at Centre for Biodiversity & Taxonomy, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir during the present study. We also thank Dr S.K. Srivastava for helping in accessing the herbarium specimens of Ranunculus repens from Central National Herbarium (CAL), Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata. We are thankful to the esteemed reviewer for their critical comments, which has improved the quality of the manuscript.

Author contributions

AAK, FAB and IR conceived and supervised the study; RG, AAK, ZAR and FAB collected the field data; FAB and AAK identified the specimens; RG and ZAR carried out laboratory work, photography and data analysis; RG and IR prepared the distribution map; RG wrote the first draft of the manuscript with major inputs from AAK; RG and AAK revised the manuscript; all the authors reviewed the draft manuscript and agreed to its submission.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

Ruquia Gulzar acknowledges CSIR, New Delhi for the financial support received as Junior Research Fellow during the present study.