Can linear transportation infrastructure verges constitute a habitat and/or a corridor for vascular plants in temperate ecosystems? A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Linear transportation infrastructures (roads, railways, oil and gas pipelines, powerlines and waterways) are recognized as important contributors to the fragmentation of species habitats. On the other hand, verges of linear transportation infrastructures (road and railway embankments, strips of grass under power lines or above buried pipelines, or waterway banks) form vast networks of continuous habitats. While the loss of natural habitats still poses a significant threat to biodiversity, verges can provide habitats or corridors in anthropogenic areas, although this potential for conservation remains controversial. The current paper is the first synthesis of evidence addressing this topic for vascular plants (except strictly aquatic species) in temperate ecosystems. We asked the following question: can linear transportation infrastructure verges constitute habitats and/or corridors for vascular plants in temperate ecosystems?

Methods: We conducted a systematic literature survey using two online bibliographic databases, three search engines, specialist websites, and by sending a call for literature to subject experts. We also integrated studies from a previous systematic review with an overlapping scope. We successively screened the articles for relevance on titles, abstracts and full texts using criteria detailed in an a priori protocol. We then used six specific questions to categorize the selected studies and critically assess them. These questions encompassed the potential of verges as habitats and corridors for vascular plants, and the effects of landscape and management on these potentialities. We created a database of the studies with low and medium risk of bias. We synthesized results for specific questions in narrative syntheses. Finally, studies about the habitat role of verges that met the criteria for a meta-analysis were used for quantitative syntheses.

Review findings: Our systematic literature survey yielded 101,524 search results. After critical appraisal, we included in our systematic review 294 articles that reported 316 studies. Most studies were conducted along road verges or waterway banks, with only a handful of studies involving powerlines, railways or pipelines. We were not able to draw conclusions on the role of verges as corridors for vascular plants as too few relevant studies were obtained. Regarding the habitat function of verges however, meta-analyses were conducted based on 205 cases from 47 primary studies that compared abundance and/or species richness in verges vs habitats away from transportation infrastructure for exotic, native or all species together. For non-highway road verges, both the abundance and richness of exotic species were higher on non-highway road verges, but we found no significant differences among species in general, or for native species specifically, which implies that alien species would often add but not subtract species. A wide variety of management practices were also represented in the evidence base. Overall, systematic impacts on species richness or abundance rarely emerged, but human interventions were seldom neutral and usually altered, at least temporarily, the balance between the native and exotic flora or among various functional groups.

Conclusions: We identified a major knowledge gap regarding the potential of linear transportation infrastructure verges as corridors for vascular plants. Thus, we call for more research on this particular topic, especially as the evidence synthesis underlined the potential of verges as habitat for exotic and invasive flora.

Keywords: Green infrastructure; Invasion; Movement; Pipeline; Powerline; Railways embankment; Right of way; Roadside; Tracheophytes; Waterway bank.

Fig. 1

Flow diagram reporting the screening process of the articles and studies of the review

Fig. 2

Number of studies with low, medium, high risk of bias for each specific question

Fig. 3

Study locations (country and continents)

Fig. 4

Years of publication of the articles retained before and after study validity assessment

Fig. 5

Mean effect sizes by LTI category with 95% confidence intervals. A positive effect size indicates that abundance or species richness respectively were higher in verges than in control sites. Effect sizes are calculated using ‘non-redundant’ cases if outcomes were reported for both a group of plants and a subset of that group (e.g. number of forb species and number of exotic forbs in the same study). a Abundance for all species together. Values in orange correspond to the estimates for all cases independently of plant status (native/exotic). b Abundance for native/exotic species. Values in blue were obtained from cases for either native species (dark blue) or exotic species (light blue) only. c Species richness for all species together. d Species richness for native/exotic species only. For all plots, the width of the bar is proportional to the number of corresponding cases, also indicated below each effect size with the associated number of individual studies in brackets. Estimated means statistically significantly different from zero (P-value < 0.05) are indicated by an asterisk (*)