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Artificial perches promote vegetation restoration

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Abstract

Native ecosystems are continuously being transformed mostly into agricultural lands. Simultaneously, a large proportion of fields are abandoned after some years of use. Without any intervention, altered landscapes usually show a slow reversion to native ecosystems, or to novel ecosystems. One of the main barriers to vegetation regeneration is poor propagule supply. Many restoration programs have already implemented the use of artificial perches in order to increase seed availability in open areas where bird dispersal is limited by the lack of trees. To evaluate the effectiveness of this practice, we performed a series of meta-analyses comparing the use of artificial perches versus control sites without perches. We found that setting-up artificial perches increases the abundance and richness of seeds that arrive in altered areas surrounding native ecosystems. Moreover, density of seedlings is also higher in open areas with artificial perches than in control sites without perches. Taken together, our results support the use of artificial perches to overcome the problem of poor seed availability in degraded fields, promoting and/or accelerating the restoration of vegetation in concordance with the surrounding landscape.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all authors of the studies who kindly shared the data used in our analyses. BG was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) during this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Paraná, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Ruta 11 Km 12,5, CP 3101, Oro Verde, Entre Ríos, Argentina

    Brenda Yamile Guidetti & Sebastián Dardanelli

  2. INIBIOMA - CONICET, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Quintral 1250, CP 8400, Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina

    Guillermo Cesar Amico

  3. Grupo de Ecología de Invasiones, INIBIOMA - CONICET, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Av. de los Pioneros 2350, CP 8400, Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina

    Mariano A. Rodriguez-Cabal

Authors
  1. Brenda Yamile Guidetti
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  2. Guillermo Cesar Amico
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  3. Sebastián Dardanelli
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  4. Mariano A. Rodriguez-Cabal
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Correspondence to Brenda Yamile Guidetti.

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Communicated by Martin Nunez.

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Guidetti, B.Y., Amico, G.C., Dardanelli, S. et al. Artificial perches promote vegetation restoration. Plant Ecol 217, 935–942 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-016-0619-4

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