Road Ecology Center

Heavy machinery is regularly used throughout the world to maintain infrastructure corridors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the response of roadside populations of three Acacia shrub species to soil disturbance from roadworks. Results were highly variable. However, resprouting and seedling emergence led to a 6.2 percent population increase at four road reserves. Two years after grading, there was significant resprouting of A. decora and resprouts reached a mean height of 72 cm. One year after disturbance, 71 percent of A. decora resprouts flowered and 49 percent also set viable seed. In contrast, there was patchy seedling emergence of A. pycnantha and A. montana. These results show that grading of roadsides appears to favor plants with strong resprouting ability and that the scale of response depends on the plants life-history attributes and the prevailing disturbance regime. Further studies of individual plant responses to soil disturbance can only better our understanding of plant dynamics in road and other transportation corridors.