The Restoration of Erica verticillata

Hitchcock, Anthony; Rebelo, Anthony G.

doi:10.24823/sibbaldia.2017.222

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This collection preserves to this day dozens of species including two that once inhabited the Cape flats but which, due to habitat destruction around the city of Cape Town, are extinct in the wild: Erica verticillata (Hitchcock, 2003;Hitchcock & Rebelo, 2017) (Fig. 8) and E. turgida (Hitchcock, 2007).…”

Section: Conservation Of Species and Cultivarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where have all the heathers gone?

Nelson¹,

Pirie

2022

Sibbaldia

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Heathers have been cultivated for several centuries, both the hardy heaths (Calluna, Daboecia and Erica) from the northern hemisphere and the more frost-tender species of Erica from southern Africa known as Cape heaths. In the late 19th century, a number of heather gardens were created, especially in Britain, and the popularity of heathers as long-lasting garden plants reached its zenith in western Europe and temperate North America in the late 20th century. At about the same time, deliberate breeding and selecting of Calluna vulgaris (ling) for flowers that lack normal sexual parts and remain bud-like led to a revolution in heather production with tens of millions of these bud-bloomer Calluna propagated each year for an ephemeral trade dominated by throwaway plants. Concomitantly, the diversity of hardy heathers offered by the trade has declined sharply with a small number of artificially raised clones, protected by plant breeders’ rights, now dominating the market. In contrast, the discovery of living lineages of a few Erica species that are extinct in the wild in South Africa has led to successful reintroduction programmes, particularly of Erica verticillata. The Erica Conservation Consortium, inaugurated in 2020, aims to coordinate and prioritise ex situ conservation of endangered Cape heaths.

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Section: Conservation Of Species and Cultivarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where have all the heathers gone?

Nelson¹,

Pirie

2022

Sibbaldia

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“…It may not be feasible to expect to restore a degraded site to a reference condition, and perhaps the short-term goal should rather be to reinstate vegetation structure in support of key ecosystem functions (Gaertner et al 2012a(Gaertner et al , 2012b. This will still provide habitat for species of conservation concern, as was performed in a nearby restoration site for Erica verticillata, a species endemic to lowland fynbos that became extinct in the wild but is being reintroduced to habitats with restored vegetation structure (Hitchcock & Rebelo 2017).…”

Section: Anticipating Biotic Thresholds and Using Treatment Simulatio...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A dynamic modeling tool to anticipate the effectiveness of invasive plant control and restoration recovery trajectories in South African fynbos

Hall

Bastos

Vicente

et al. 2021

Restoration Ecology

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Invasive alien plants negatively impact ecosystems, necessitating intricate management actions. In a critically endangered vegetation type within the fynbos biome of South Africa, a study was performed comparing different management interventions over plots invaded by Acacia saligna. A dynamic modeling approach was designed to analyze field data and simulate the effectiveness of several restoration methods. Field data for vegetation recovery rates over the course of 2 years were fed into the model, which allowed the extrapolation of multiple recovery trajectories over a long time-span, not possible to obtain from traditional short-term field surveys. Our model simulations show that different treatments in similarly degraded states at the time of clearing can result in vastly different recovery trajectories. Active seed sowing was initially most expensive but resulted in the most successful native shrub recovery, decreasing costs of longer-term follow-up acacia clearing. Clearing without burning was cheapest but resulted in limited establishment of both native and acacia cover, providing an opportunity for secondary invasion by alien forbs. In this case, biotic thresholds may have been crossed which prevented recovery of certain vegetation components. Active sowing can partially reverse thresholds by restoring shrub cover but not structural diversity. Therefore, even applying this treatment did not resemble vegetation structure of the reference condition after an extended period of 30 years, but does show how restoration can be improved by native seed sowing compared to passive restoration alone. Our model simulations provide a useful tool to support decision-making by providing management recommendations for optimizing alien plant-clearing protocols.

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Preventing species extinctions: A global conservation consortium for Erica

Pirie

Blackhall-Miles

Bourke

et al. 2022

Plants People Planet

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Societal Impact Statement Human‐caused habitat destruction and transformation is resulting in a cascade of impacts to biological diversity, of which arguably the most fundamental is species extinctions. The Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) are a means to pool efforts and expertise across national boundaries and between disciplines in the attempt to prevent such losses in focal plant groups. GCC Erica coordinates an international response to extinction threats in one such group, the heaths, or heathers, of which hundreds of species are found only in South Africa's spectacularly diverse Cape Floristic Region. Summary Effectively combating the biodiversity crisis requires coordinated conservation efforts. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and numerous partners have established Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive conservation strategies for priority threatened plant groups. Through these networks, institutions with specialised collections and staff can leverage ongoing work to optimise impact for threatened plant species. The genus Erica poses a challenge similar in scale to that of the largest other GCC group, Rhododendron, but almost 700 of the around 800 known species of Erica are concentrated in a single biodiversity hotspot, the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of South Africa. Many species are known to be threatened, suffering the immediate impacts of habitat destruction, invasive species, changes in natural fire regimes and climate change. Efforts to counter these threats face general challenges: disproportionate burden of in situ conservation falling on a minority of the community, limited knowledge of species‐rich groups, shortfalls in assessing and monitoring threat, lack of resources for in situ and limitations of knowledge for ex situ conservation efforts and in communicating the value of biological diversity to a public who may never encounter it in the wild. GCC Erica brings together the world's Erica experts, conservationists and the botanical community, including botanic gardens, seed banks and organisations in Africa, Madagascar, Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond. We are collaboratively pooling our unique sets of skills and resources to address these challenges in working groups for conservation prioritisation, conservation in situ, horticulture, seed banking, systematic research and outreach.

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The Restoration of Erica verticillata

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Where have all the heathers gone?

Where have all the heathers gone?

A dynamic modeling tool to anticipate the effectiveness of invasive plant control and restoration recovery trajectories in South African fynbos

Preventing species extinctions: A global conservation consortium for Erica

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