A global examination on the differential impacts of roadsides on native vs. exotic and weedy plant species

Lázaro-Lobo, Adrián; Ervin, Gary N.

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00555

Cited by 55 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Nonetheless, the relatively low numbers of conservation species found in our plots means that it is imperative that remaining semi‐natural grasslands are preserved. It is also important to remember that in many regions of the world, road verges entail a risk to native biodiversity due to the establishment and spread of invasive species (Lázaro‐Lobo & Ervin, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadside diversity in relation to age and surrounding source habitat: evidence for long time lags in valuable green infrastructure

Auffret

Lindgren

2020

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. The severe and ongoing decline in semi‐natural grassland habitat during the past two centuries means that it is important to consider how other, marginal grassland habitat elements can contribute to landscape‐level biodiversity, and under what circumstances. 2. To examine how habitat age and the amount of core grassland habitat in the surrounding landscape affect diversity in green infrastructure, we carried out inventories of 36 rural road verges that were either historical (pre‐1901) or modern (established post‐1901 and before 1975), and were surrounded by relatively high (>15%) or low (<5%) levels of grassland habitat. We recorded the number of plant species, grassland specialists, grassland conservation species and the fraction of the landscape's species and specialists found in the road verge. 3. Road verge communities were characterised by high levels of grassland specialist species (35% of the 161 species recorded), with road verge sites supporting 15–20% of the specialist species found in the surrounding 25 km2 landscape. 4. Richness of species and specialists were more closely related to road age than to the amount of surrounding habitat. Higher diversity in historical roads, despite the majority of modern roads being at least 60 years old, suggests a long time lag in the establishment of grassland communities in marginal grassland habitats. We identified no effect of historical surrounding land use on present day diversity in road verges. 5. Road verge richness was not affected by the amount of surrounding grassland. This could be due to the relatively low amounts of grassland remaining in all landscapes, together with dispersal limitation commonly found in grassland plant communities contributing to a potential time lag. 6. We identified road verges as potentially very important habitats for grassland communities. Because of the high levels of grassland specialists present, these and other marginal grasslands and grassland green infrastructure should be explicitly considered in landscape‐scale conservation management. Practitioners looking to identify the most species‐rich road verges should aim to find the oldest possible, while long time lags in community assembly suggests that seed sowing could be appropriate to enhance roadside diversity, even in decades‐old road verges.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadside diversity in relation to age and surrounding source habitat: evidence for long time lags in valuable green infrastructure

Auffret

Lindgren

2020

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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“…Road verges support populations of some plants and animals (reviewed in Gardiner et al, ). For example, road verges enhance the distribution and dispersal of many plant species (reviewed in Lázaro‐Lobo & Ervin, ), often supporting a greater diversity and abundance of plant species than various adjacent habitat types—possibly because they receive more (locally produced or dispersed) seeds (reviewed in Suárez‐Esteban, Fahrig, Delibes, & Fedriani, ). Verges also have a similar diversity and greater abundance of insects than comparable habitats such as grasslands (reviewed in Villemey et al, ), and provide important nesting and foraging habitats for birds (reviewed in Morelli, Beim, Jerzak, Jones, & Tryjanowski, ).…”

Section: Evidence For Es Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Road verge corridors may also facilitate the distribution and dispersal of invasive species (e.g. exotic plants; reviewed in Lázaro‐Lobo & Ervin, ), which may degrade ES (reviewed in Vilà & Hulme, ). For example, in South Africa, road verges are a major conduit for the spread of invasive plant species, which are now estimated to cover 10% of the country and have negatively affected biodiversity and water security, intensified the impact of fires and increased soil erosion, and as such have required large‐scale and costly management such as by the Working for Water programme (Department of Water Affairs, ).…”

Section: Road Verges As Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem service provision by road verges

Phillips

Bullock

Osborne

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Roads form a vast, rapidly growing global network that has diverse, detrimental ecological impacts. However, the habitats that border roads (‘road verges’) form a parallel network that might help mitigate these impacts and provide additional benefits (ecosystem services; ES). We evaluate the capacity of road verges to provide ES by reviewing existing research and considering their relevant characteristics: area, connectivity, shape, and contextual ES supply and demand. We consider the present situation, and how this is likely to change based on future projections for growth in road extent, traffic densities and urban populations. Road verges not only provide a wide range of ES, including biodiversity provision, regulating services (e.g. air and water filtration) and cultural services (e.g. health and aesthetic benefits by providing access to nature) but also displace other habitats and provide ecosystem disservices (e.g. plant allergens and damage to infrastructure). Globally, road verges may currently cover 270,000 km2 and store 0.015 Gt C/year, which will further increase with 70% projected growth in the global road network. Road verges are well placed to mitigate traffic pollution and address demand for ES in surrounding ES‐impoverished landscapes, thereby improving human health and well‐being in urban areas, and improving agricultural production and sustainability in farmland. Demand for ES provided by road verges will likely increase due to projected growth in traffic densities and urban populations, though traffic pollution will be reduced by technological advances (e.g. electric vehicles). Road verges form a highly connected network, which may enhance ES provision but facilitate the dispersal of invasive species and increase vehicle–wildlife collisions. Synthesis and applications. Road verges offer a significant opportunity to mitigate the negative ecological effects of roads and to address demand for ecosystem services (ES) in urban and agricultural landscapes. Their capacity to provide ES might be enhanced considerably if they were strategically designed and managed for environmental outcomes, namely by optimizing the selection, position and management of plant species and habitats. Specific opportunities include reducing mowing frequencies and planting trees in large verges. Road verge management for ES must consider safety guidelines, financial costs and ecosystem disservices, but is likely to provide long‐term financial returns if environmental benefits are considered.

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“…Vilà and Ibáñez (2011) demonstrated that the presence and abundance of exotic plant species decreased toward the interior of natural and semi-natural ecosystem patches, influenced by edge effects and aggregation of landscape elements. Roadsides, power line rights-of-way, and pipeline corridors can also greatly contribute to invasive exotic species propagation through their effects on landscape configuration and species dispersal (D'Antonio and Meyerson 2002;Drake et al 2003;Lázaro-Lobo and Ervin 2019;With 2002). Furthermore, it has been shown that the landscape context associated with linear features such as roads is more important to explain biological invasions than consideration of the roads by themselves (Riitters et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating landscape characteristics of predicted hotspots for plant invasions

Lázaro-Lobo

Evans

Ervin

2020

Invasive plant sci. manag.

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Invasive species are widely recognized as a major threat to global diversity and an important factor associated with global change. Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely applied to determine the range that invasive species could potentially occupy, but most examples focus on predictive variables at a single spatial scale. In this study, we simultaneously considered a broad range of variables related to climate, topography, land cover, land use, and propagule pressure to predict what areas in the southeastern United States are more susceptible to invasion by 45 invasive terrestrial plant species. Using expert-verified occurrence points from EDDMapS, we modeled invasion susceptibility at 30-m resolution for each species using a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling approach. We then analyzed how environmental predictors affected susceptibility to invasion at different spatial scales. Climatic and land-use variables, especially minimum temperature of coldest month and distance to developed areas, were good predictors of landscape susceptibility to invasion. For most of the species tested, human-disturbed systems such as developed areas and barren lands were more prone to be invaded than areas that experienced minimal human interference. As expected, we found that landscape heterogeneity and the presence of corridors for propagule dispersal significantly increased landscape susceptibility to invasion for most species. However, we also found a number of species for which the susceptibility to invasion increased in landscapes with large core areas and/or less-aggregated patches. These exceptions suggest that even though we found the expected general patterns for susceptibility to invasion among most species, the influence of landscape composition and configuration on invasion risk is species specific.

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A global examination on the differential impacts of roadsides on native vs. exotic and weedy plant species

Cited by 55 publications

References 106 publications

Roadside diversity in relation to age and surrounding source habitat: evidence for long time lags in valuable green infrastructure

Roadside diversity in relation to age and surrounding source habitat: evidence for long time lags in valuable green infrastructure

Ecosystem service provision by road verges

Evaluating landscape characteristics of predicted hotspots for plant invasions

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