Does coastal foredune stabilization with Ammophila arenaria restore plant and arthropod communities in southeastern Australia?

In this study we examine whether stabilization of denuded coastal foredunes in southeastern Australia with the exotic grass species Ammophila arenaria (marram grass) restores plant and ground-active arthropod assemblages char acteristic of undisturbed foredunes. Vascular plants and arthropods were sa mpled from foredunes that had been stabilized with marram grass in 1982, an d from foredunes with no obvious anthropogenic disturbance (control dunes). All arthropods collected were sorted to Order, and ants (81.5% of all spec imens) were further sorted to morphospecies. Abundance within arthropod Ord ers, as well as richness, composition, and structure of the plant and ant a ssemblages from control and stabilized dunes, were compared. The abundance of Diptera was significantly greater on stabilized dunes, while the abundan ce of Isopoda was significantly greater on control dunes, There were no sig nificant differences in morphospecies richness or composition of ant assemb lages on the two dunes types, although some differences in the abundances o f individual morphospecies were observed. By contrast, stabilized dunes exh ibited lower plant species richness and highly significant differences in p lant species composition, due mainly to the large projected foliage cover o f marram grass, The study revealed that after 12 years, the vegetation comp osition and structure of stabilized dunes was still dominated by marram gra ss and, as a result invertebrate assemblages had not been restored to those characteristic of undisturbed foredunes.