Background and project results
Temperate managed grasslands are biodiversity hotspots holding the world record for plant species richness at small spatial scales. The persistence of the grassland biome in temperate Europe since the Pleistocene has resulted in a large species pool of plants, fungi and insects through speciation, co-evolution, and immigration.
A large proportion of the Central and Northern European flora is endemic to temperate grasslands and can only survive in this habitat.
During a long period of low-input agriculture, grasslands represented one of the major underpinnings of man’s socio-ecological system. During the last century, area and quality of grasslands have declined dramatically due to abandonment, afforestation, conversion into crop fields, fertilization and urbanization. As a result, a large number of grassland species have occupied refuge habitats along road verges – narrow vegetation strips along roads that are characterized by similar management as traditional grasslands.
Today, sustainable green infrastructure with well-developed species-rich road verges offers great prospects for compensating the loss of grassland ecosystem services that include habitat and biodiversity, control of agricultural pests, soil stability, water quality, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, landscape heterogeneity and aesthetic beauty. In Sweden, road verges with grassland vegetation cover 164 000 ha, which is 37% of the area of all farm-owned pastures and >60 times the remaining area of hay meadows with high conservation value. As linear habitats, road verges increase connectivity in fragmented landscapes. This makes them also prone to colonization by non-native species, which is currently the greatest threat to species-rich road verges. Large, dominant non-native herbs and woody plants close to roads cause increasing problems for traffic safety and road maintenance.
Project results
We will present actual project results here and on the research group blog.
You can read more about invasive species and transport infrastructure and current knowledge gaps here (in Swedish):
Tschan (2018) Invasiva arter och transportinfrastruktur. VTI rapport 905
Wissman et al. (2015) Invasiva arter i infrastruktur. CBM skriftserie 98
Lennartsson et al. (2021) Kunskapsbrister för hantering av invasiva främmande växter. TRIEKOL rapport