2024 Volume 33 Pages 51-58
Researches on Taraxacum officinale, an invasive plant in Japan, have been conducted in urban areas and their suburbs where human activities are high. However, it has been recently reported that T. officinale has invaded alpine areas in Japan, where the influence of humans was minimal. In this study, we investigated the invasion of T. officinale and hybrids between the alien and the Japanese native one in three alpine regions: Mt. Ibuki (1,377 m), Mt. Hakusan (2,702 m) and the Ushirotateyama Mountain Range (2,932 m). In the three alpine regions, the alien and hybrid dandelions were found growing in places under anthropogenic disturbance, such as parking lots and gondola stops. Approximately half of the individuals judged to the alien dandelions based on their morphology were hybrid dandelions, and the proportion of hybrids tended to rise with increasing the altitude. In Mt. Ibuki and Mt. Hakusan, the clonal diversity of the invasive dandelions was low, and a limited number of clones tended to increase the population. On the other hand, the diversity of clones in the Ushirotateyama Mountain Range was high, suggesting that clones of invasive dandelions with various genotypes have established.
