[PCA] ARTICLE: Roadsides As Vital Habitat: An Old Idea Is Getting Its Due

[Park, Margaret E]

Tony Romano, OKNP botanist/Conservation Coordinator, Kentucky Native Plant Society,

Summary

Aldo Leopold, a name that looms large in ecology, recognized over 70 years ago that roadsides were some of the last bastions of the mid-west tallgrass prairie in Wisconsin and Illinois. Even in Leopold’s time, most of the tallgrass prairie in the mid-west was already lost to the same processes that have diminished Kentucky’s grasslands. A Sand County Almanac, a collection of Leopold’s essays published posthumously in 1949, is a seminal work of ecological and philosophical writing that continues to influence the thinking of ecologists and conservationists to this day. While re-reading Almanac this past winter, I was struck by two essays that had direct bearing on the topic of this article. In Prairie Birthday, Leopold describes a remnant prairie tucked in the corner of a cemetery which borders a highway. He describes a stand of compass plant (Silphium laciniatum), perhaps the last population in that county, that blooms each July in that cemetery. Sadly, the fence separating the prairie from the road is eventually removed and the Silphium is mowed. Leopold laments that “this is one little episode in the funeral of the native flora, which in turn is one episode in the funeral of the floras of the world.”

In recent years, roadsides and utility right-of-ways have been increasingly recognized by ecologists and land managers for their potential conservation value. Research has shown that roadsides can provide important habitat for many pollinating insects, including at-risk species like the monarch butterfly (Hopwood 2008). Because they are maintained in an open, grass dominated state, roadsides can also contain remnants of native grassland communities that support diverse and sometimes rare plant species. Importantly, research shows that intact, high-quality, grasslands provide some of the best habitat for pollinators due to the abundance and diversity of plant species that occur in these communities (Ries et al. 2001). In other words, if we can protect high-quality roadside grasslands, we will also be providing vital habitat to insect populations. Nationwide, approximately 10 million acres of roadside right-of-ways are managed by state transportation departments (Forman et al. 2003). If successfully managed for native plant species, ten million acres is a tremendous amount of potential pollinator and grassland habitat.

Link to article: https://www.knps.org/category/conservation/
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