Invasive Plant Species Distribution

Diversity 2022, 14, 167 25° N 27° N 29° N 3 of 16 hilly mountainous karst area, and the grassland plant community is mainly composed of Arthraxon hispidus (Thunb.) Makino, Artemisia argyi H.Lév. & Vaniot, Imperata cylindrica (L.) P.Beauv., Eragrostis pilosa (L.) P.Beauv., Miscanthus floridulus (Labill.) Warb., Ficus tikoua Bureau, Erigeron annuus (L.) Desf, Erigeron acris L., and Agrimonia pilosa Ledeb. 105° E 108° E 105° E Bijie Guiyang Zunyi Tongren Qiandongnan Liupanshui Anshun Qiannan Qaxinan 0 50 100 Km Sampling Sites 108° E 25° N 27° N Figure 1. Distribution of the sampling sites in Guizhou Province, Southwest China. The geographic coordinate system of the map is the China Geodetic Coordinate System 2000. Overall, 373 sampling sites, covering nearly all counties of Guizhou Province, were established from July to October in 2021. Within each sampling site, 20 sampling plots (1 × 1 m in size and well separated from each other) were surveyed to determine the plant community composition. At the same time, within each site, three sampling plots (1 × 1 m in size and well separated from each other) were established, and their numbers of species, average plant height, plant cover, and plant biomass for both invasive and non- invasive species were determined. The aboveground vegetation in each plot was collected by species. Plant samples were dried for 90 h at a temperature of 60 °C and weighed to determine aboveground plant biomass. The publications "Alien invasive plants in Chinese grassland" [32], "Invasive alien species of China" (website: http://www.iplant.cn/ias/, accessed on 1 January 2022), and "The checklist of the Chinese invasive plants" [30,31] were used to determine whether a plant was an invasive plant. The invasion levels of each plant species were classified according to previous publications [30,31], using the following five levels: 1, malignant invasive species, that cause malignant economic and ecological damage at a national scale and affect more than one geographical region; 2, seriously invasive species, that cause serious economic and ecological damage at a national scale and affect more than one geographical region; 3, local invasive species, that cause local economic and ecological damage within one or more geographical regions but not nationwide; 4, general invasive species, that will not cause serious or obvious economic and ecological damage based on their biological and ecological characteristics and will most likely not cause new invasions; 5, species requiring further observation; these are newly found, newly reported, or poorly understood species whose invasion trends require further observation. N 29° N

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