In the race to restore some of North America’s most biodiverse and threatened ecosystems, a straightforward first step is likely among the most important.
In the race to restore some of North America’s most biodiverse and threatened ecosystems, a straightforward first step is likely among the most important.
New research shows that degraded savanna ecosystems can reap lasting benefits from a single seeding of native understory plants. Published this week in the journal PNAS, the study underscores the long-term value of even a brief burst of targeted land management in efforts to restore fallow agricultural fields and other landscapes scarred by decades or centuries of human activity.
The eight-year experiment led by a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Michigan State University centered on three large tracts of federal land within the historical range of the longleaf pine savanna ecosystem. Longleaf pine savanna dominated portions of the southeastern United States prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Read more at: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Longleaf pine ecosystems like the one pictured near Fayetteville, North Carolina, once stretched from Virginia to Texas and can contain some of the most diverse plant communities in North America. However, much of the remaining longleaf pine plant communities have lost significant biodiversity, making restoration a high priority. Seeding native plants may help restore large portions of this iconic ecosystem across the southeastern U.S. (Photo Credit: Phil Hahn)
