Abstract
The ultimate goal of threatened plant translocations is to establish self-sustaining populations. Lessons learnt from plant translocations can inform future translocations and improve conservation outcomes via adaptive management. We assessed translocation success for 76 translocations of 50 species established as part of recovery programmes between 1998 and 2016 in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR), a biodiversity hotspot with Mediterranean-type climate. We used a series of Bayesian hierarchical models to assess translocation success as measured by plant survival, height growth, crown growth, and reproduction (flowering and fruiting). We found that fencing to prevent vertebrate herbivory improved survival, irrigating plants over the first two summer dry periods improved the likelihood of reproduction, and where the rainfall increased above the 30-year average in the two years following planting, it positively influenced survival, growth, and reproduction. We recommend that fencing to prevent herbivory should be broadly considered in threatened plant translocations, while irrigation to improve translocation success would benefit plant species in Mediterranean-type ecosystems and other dryland environments.
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Data Availability
Data sets from this study are available from corresponding author on reasonable request. Model code to recreate all analyses is available at https://github.com/jdyen/translocations.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the staff and volunteers of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions who have assisted with planning, planting, and monitoring of the translocations included in this study. Specifically, we would like to highlight and acknowledge the assistance of Alanna Chant, Amanda Shade, Andrew Crawford, Anne Cochrane, Bree Phillips, and Sarah Barrett who have inspired, supported, encouraged, and assisted with this work over the past two decades.
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Funding for this study was received from the Australian government’s National Environmental Science Program Threatened Species Recovery Hub.
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LM, DC, and RD contributed to planning, planting, and monitoring all the translocations; all authors contributed to development of research; LM, RD, DC, and RS contributed to data collection; LM and RD contributed to data collation; JY, PV, and LM contributed to model development; LM wrote the manuscript; and all authors edited the manuscript.
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Communicated by Thomas Abeli.
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Monks, L., Yen, J., Dillon, R. et al. Herbivore exclusion and water availability improve success across 76 translocations of 50 threatened plant species in a biodiversity hotspot with a Mediterranean climate. Plant Ecol 224, 817–830 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-023-01313-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-023-01313-5