Judit Planas i Puig finalised her master's thesis for which she conducted fieldwork on Saba from March until June this year. Her research was triggered by the observation that Coralita grows mostly in areas where there is plain sunlight. Judit wanted to test this observation in a controlled setting: how does Coralita grow and germinate in shady conditions? Read her thesis here!
Coralita is an invasive alien species recognized as one of the biggest threats to the Dutch Caribbean biodiversity. Therefore, further research into control, ecology and factors regarding growth are needed to find an effective solution to manage this plant. For this purpose, Judit conducted several field experiments in Saba to evaluate the responses of Coralita’s growth and germination under different intensities of light. Coralita seeds and seedlings were exposed to 4 shading treatments (uncovered, partial shade, heavy shade and total shade) during approximately one month. Unfortunately, due to some difficulties during the experiment, a large part of the Coralita died and we didn't get any significant results. But, we did find that high soil temperatures and low degrees of moisture make for unfavourable growth conditions for Coralita. Additionally, Judit was interested in land owners' views on management of Coralita. You may have been interviewed by her about your preferences for different control methods, such as manual mowing or herbicides. The results indicated that people are mostly concerned about financial costs involved with Coralita management, and therefore prefer manual mowing which is cheap. You can read the details about how she designed and conducted her experiments in her thesis here.
judit_planasipuig_5936691_master_thesis_corallita_10_08_2018.pdf |