View from Bernica inselberg of the surrounding National Park on the island of Mahé, SeychellesC. KAISER-BUNBURY, TU DARMSTADT, GERMANY Many ecosystems around the globe are negatively perturbed by the spread of non-native animal and plant species that become invasive in these communities. Researchers have previously demonstrated that restoring native plant communities is beneficial, yet it has been unclear—and difficult to study—whether plant community restoration can also restore ecosystem functions, including the interactions among plants and other species.
Now, in a study published today (January 30) in Nature, researchers at the Technische Universität (TU) Darmstadt in Germany and their colleagues demonstrate that removing non-native plants within an inselberg—an isolated mountaintop—improved pollination by insect and vertebrate species and increased the growth and reproduction of native plant populations. The results suggest that even in habitats damaged by alien plants, productive pollination of native plants can be restored.
“This is an important paper as it’s one of the few that has tried to assess how restoration of a habitat . . . can improve the ecological functioning of that habitat,” Jeff Ollerton, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Northampton, U.K., who was not involved in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist. ...
