Motor vehicles as vectors of plant species from road verges in a suburban environment.

Summary The objective of this study was to assess the potential contribution of car-borne flora to species dispersal in a suburban area in Flanders (Belgium). Therefore, motor vehicle-borne flora was evaluated monthly for a random sample of 20 cars between October 1988 and September 1989. At the end of the experiment 33 car-borne plant species, with a total of 690 seedlings were identified from mud, attached to these vehicles. There was considerable temporal variation in the mud mass attached to the vehicles and therefore also the size and composition of the vehicle-borne flora varied during the year. Because mud retention on cars is a crucial factor in seed dispersal, the number of emerging seedlings is negatively correlated with precipitation in the week preceding the sampling. The flora dispersed by vehicles consists mostly of species with small, light seeds and a persistent seed bank. Usually, they are pioneer species of nitrogen-rich habitats. The nature of the vehicle dispersed flora was compared with the local flora of road verges and differed significantly from this in, e.g., seed length, seed weight, ecological groups, Ellenberg indicator values for nitrogen supply, potential dispersal strategies and rarity. A larger resemblance with the flora of the zone immediately adjacent to the carriageway was found. We only found a low similarity to other motor vehicle-borne floras.

[1]  J. P. Grime,et al.  SEASONAL VARIATION IN THE SEED BANKS OF HERBACEOUS SPECIES IN TEN CONTRASTING HABITATS , 1979 .

[2]  J. Wilson,et al.  The vegetation of roadside verges with respect to environmental gradients in southern New Zealand , 1995 .

[3]  G. Bredenkamp,et al.  Vegetation of road verges on an urbanisation gradient in Potchefstroom, South Africa , 2000 .

[4]  Vera Csapody.  Keimlingsbestimmungsbuch der Dikotyledonen , 1968 .

[5]  H. Ridley,et al.  The dispersal of plants throughout the world , 1931 .

[6]  Ruprecht Düll,et al.  Zeigerwerte von Pflanzen in Mitteleuropa , 1992 .

[7]  J. P. Grime,et al.  Comparative Plant Ecology , 1988, Springer Netherlands.

[8]  M. Hermy,et al.  Plant species variation across path ecotones in a variety of common vegetation types , 2004, Plant Ecology.

[9]  N. Ward,et al.  Lead in soil and vegetation along a New Zealand State Highway with low traffic volume , 1975 .

[10]  J. Way.  ROADSIDE VERGES AND CONSERVATION IN BRITAIN: A REVIEW , 1977 .

[11]  Roderick Hunt,et al.  Comparative Plant Ecology: A Functional Approach to Common British Species , 1989 .

[12]  Dr F. M. Muller.  Seedlings of the North-Western European Lowland , 2013, Springer Netherlands.

[13]  S. Leather,et al.  Biodiversity on urban roundabouts—Hemiptera, management and the species–area relationship , 2004 .

[14]  H. Clifford.  SEED DISPERSAL BY MOTOR VEHICLES , 1959 .

[15]  H. Vermeulen.  Corridor function of a road verge for dispersal of stenotopic heathland ground beetles carabidae. , 1994 .

[16]  Jiquan Chen,et al.  Effects of Forest Roads on Understory Plants in a Managed Hardwood Landscape , 2003 .

[17]  W. Lonsdale,et al.  Tourist vehicles as vectors of weed seeds in Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia , 1994 .

[18]  H. Högmander,et al.  Road and railway verges serve as dispersal corridors for grassland plants , 2001, Landscape Ecology.

[19]  Richard J. Hobbs,et al.  CONDITION OF ROADSIDE VEGETATION IN RELATION TO NUTRIENT STATUS , 1991 .

[20]  A. Zwaenepoel.  Beheer en typologie van wegbermvegetaties in Vlaanderen , 1993 .

[21]  M. Hermy,et al.  May seed banks contribute to vegetation restoration on paths in temperate deciduous forest? , 2006, Plant Ecology.

[22]  K. Fransen,et al.  Standaardlijst van de belgische vaatplanten met aanduiding van hun zeldzaamheid en socio-oecologische groep , 1982 .

[23]  K. Thompson,et al.  Plant dispersal: the role of man. , 1997 .

[24]  Richard J. Hobbs,et al.  Nature conservation: The role of corridors , 1990 .

[25]  H. Mader,et al.  Linear barriers to arthropod movements in the landscape , 1990 .

[26]  W. Schmidt.  Plant dispersal by motor cars , 1989, Vegetatio.

[27]  J. Bakker,et al.  An improved method for seed-bank analysis : Seedling emergence after removing the soil by sieving , 1996 .

[28]  S. Siegel,et al.  Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences , 2022, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[29]  Aníbal Pauchard,et al.  Influence of Elevation, Land Use, and Landscape Context on Patterns of Alien Plant Invasions along Roadsides in Protected Areas of South‐Central Chile , 2004 .

[30]  J. Bakker,et al.  Nature Management by Grazing and Cutting , 1989, Geobotany.

[31]  S. Hurlbert.  The Nonconcept of Species Diversity: A Critique and Alternative Parameters. , 1971, Ecology.

[32]  Giselher Kaule,et al.  Arten- und Biotopschutz , 1991 .

[33]  J. Belnap,et al.  Roads as Conduits for Exotic Plant Invasions in a Semiarid Landscape , 2003 .

[34]  D. Howard,et al.  Species Dispersal In Agricultural Habitats , 1992 .

[35]  K. Sýkora,et al.  Plantengemeenschappen van Nederlandse wegbermen. , 1993 .