Urochloa maxima

In a glasshouse experiment P. maximum displayed best overall growth performance and was able to completely suppress Parthenium hysterophorus growth with time (Laan et al. 2008).

Nest sites had on average 6.9% (95% CI = -2.6–16.4) more guineagrass cover than random sites, yet differences were not distinguishable from 0. Odds of nest success decreased by a factor of 0.96 (95% CI = 0.84–1.0) for every 1% increase in guineagrass canopy cover. Habitat characteristics that most distinguished nest sites from random points were total grass cover and percent horizontal cover. Although bobwhites do not avoid nesting in guineagrass, probability of nesting success is reduced slightly with increasing guineagrass cover (Moore 2010).

We surveyed 41 sites from throughout O'ahu that had been dominated by native pili grass (Heteropogon contortus) in the late 1960s. Pili grass was absent from 14 (35%) of those sites in 1997 and had declined in abundance in most of the 27 remaining sites, relative to the late 1960s. The pili grass communities have been replaced by communities dominated by one of three African grasses: Cenchrus ciliaris (buffel grass), Pennisetum setaceum (fountain grass), or Panicum maximum (Guinea grass). Panicum maximum was often associated with the shrub Leucaena leucocephala, and Cenchrus ciliaris and Pennisetum setaceum communities showed little evidence of succession toward woody vegetation (Daehler & Carino 1998).