Apophyte
As Apophyt one (botanically well "refers to the native indigenous called") plant species, change the (man-made) to anthropogenic locations and are to some degree or even entirely dependent on humans.
During the Neolithic , for example , which began 7,400 years ago, forests were cleared for the first time in Central Europe to make space for gardens and later fields. These sites were more open than most natural ones. They offered a new habitat for some native plant species that were adapted to open locations. The first arable weeds were therefore partly native species, others were introduced with the seeds from southeast Europe or the Orient.
On the other hand, if one follows the mega- herbivore hypothesis set up by Frans Vera , the light locations that apophytes need existed in Central Europe before the Neolithic, as the forests were kept open by large herbivores. According to this, the anthropogenic locations would only represent replacement habitats for open pasture landscapes that have disappeared , to which the apophytes would originally have adapted.
Exemplary apophytes
Typical apophytes include, for example, goosefoot plants such as the Gute Heinrich , which were native to floodplains and open damp locations. Among the plants that belonged to the communities on dry forest marginal sites and settled on the fields, including for example, mouse-ear cress and creeping thistle . The number of species that originally belonged to forest communities and that moved to anthropogenic locations is much lower. They include, for example, the field bellflower and the burdock bedstraw . The same applies to the types of coastal vegetation. The toadflax and common bluegrass are among the few species that originally came from this community and that are attributed to the apophytes .
Differentiation from archaeo- and neophytes
The first colonization of human-influenced sites is usually by native species that are adapted to these site conditions. They are then followed by species that were consciously or unconsciously carried away by humans (so-called hemerochoria ). These introduced plants are divided into archaeophytes , which were introduced before 1492, and neophytes , which were brought into their new habitat in the period thereafter. The year 1492 - the year when Christopher Columbus landed on the Antilles with the Santa Maria - is marked by most authors as the beginning of a new era, since as a result a global exchange of people and goods began, which in its dimensions was without historical precedent was.
Picture gallery of typical apophytes
literature
- Ingo Kowarik: Biological Invasions. Neophytes and Neozoa in Central Europe. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-800-13924-3