School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableCan we integrate ecological approaches to improve plant selection for green infrastructure?(ELSEVIER GMBH, 2022-10)
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ItemSocio-Ecological Dimensions of Spontaneous Plants on Green Roofs(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2021)Green roofs have the potential to provide socio-ecological services in urban settings that lack vegetation and open space. However, implementation of green roofs is limited by high construction and maintenance costs. Consequently, green roof projects often disproportionately benefit wealthy communities and can further marginalise disadvantaged communities by increasing property values and housing costs. Vegetation cover on green roofs is crucial to their provisioning of socio-ecological services. Evidence suggests that green roof plantings change over time, especially with limited maintenance, and are replaced with spontaneous “weedy” species. This is often perceived as a failure of the original green roof design intent and spontaneous species are usually removed. However, where good coverage is achieved, spontaneous vegetation could provide beneficial services such as stormwater mitigation, habitat provision, and climate regulation. While social norms about “weediness” may limit the desirability of some spontaneous species, research suggests that their acceptability on green roofs increases with coverage. As spontaneous species can establish on green roofs without irrigation and fertiliser, reduced input costs could help facilitate adoption particularly in markets without an established green roof industry. Construction costs may also be reduced in hot and dry climates where deeper substrates are necessary to ensure plant survival, as many spontaneous species are able to colonise shallow substrates and can regenerate from seed. If implemented based on socio-ecological need, green roofs with spontaneous vegetation coverage may apply less pressure to property values and housing costs than conventionally planted green roofs, increasing the resilience of urban communities while limiting gentrification.
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ItemAusTraits, a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora(NATURE PORTFOLIO, 2021-09-30)We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. Traits vary in scope from physiological measures of performance (e.g. photosynthetic gas exchange, water-use efficiency) to morphological attributes (e.g. leaf area, seed mass, plant height) which link to aspects of ecological variation. AusTraits contains curated and harmonised individual- and species-level measurements coupled to, where available, contextual information on site properties and experimental conditions. This article provides information on version 3.0.2 of AusTraits which contains data for 997,808 trait-by-taxon combinations. We envision AusTraits as an ongoing collaborative initiative for easily archiving and sharing trait data, which also provides a template for other national or regional initiatives globally to fill persistent gaps in trait knowledge.
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