Impacts of Anthropogenic Land Use/Land Cover on the Distribution of Invasive Aquatic Macrophytes in Tropical Floodplains: a Case Study from the Barak River Basin in Northeast India

In this study, we tested two hypotheses in the floodplains of the Barak river basin in northeastern India. The first hypothesis assumed that the IAMs would occupy available environmentally suitable areas identified using remotely sensed enhanced vegetation index (EVI) with the help of species distribution modeling (SDM).1 The second hypothesis assumed that anthropogenic LULC governs the distribution pattern of IAMs so that the selected IAMs may not occupy all the suitable areas predicted through SDM and EVI. We assumed that climate and elevation would not significantly impact IAM distribution as they do not vary significantly in the study area. Our specific objectives were (i) to predict the distribution of IAMs in the floodplains of Barak basin, and (ii) to examine the association of IAM abundance with different anthropogenic LULC impacts.