Effects of tourism development on plant spillover effects at the edge of a landscape

Anthropogenic landscape alteration can create fragmented habitats and alter edge structures, considerably affecting the natural dispersal of plant species. In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis on edge-spillover effects of animal-dispersed, wind-dispersed, unassisted-dispersal (including species dispersed by gravity and ejection), and total species between both recreational/non-recreational zones, and traffic/non-traffic corridors in the Khanka nature reserve based on the plant individual motion ecology-seed dispersal modes. The results showed that edge-spillover effects of both animal-dispersed and total species were significantly weaker in recreational zones than in non-recreational zones, while wind-dispersed species significantly spilled over in both zones. We only documented a few unassisted-dispersal species spilling over in either zone. The spillover-effects of animal-dispersed species were weaker in traffic corridors than in nontraffic corridors; in contrast, the spillover effects of wind-dispersed species in traffic corridors were significantly stronger than in non-traffic corridors. Similar to the recreational and non-recreational zones, a few unassisted-dispersal species spilled over into both experimental corridors and their spillover distances were relatively shorter than that of the animal dispersed and wind-dispersed species. There was no significant difference in the total species spillover effects between the two types of corridors. The results indicated that tourism development had a considerable effect on the motion ecology of plants, leading to changes in spillover effects.