Cover | Plant performance and diversity in roadside and railway habitats
April 2026 Cover
Photograph by Svenja Kroeger
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Transport infrastructure is a pervasive feature of modern landscapes, and its ecological significance is increasingly recognised. Road verges constitute novel habitats characterised by traffic impacts and road maintenance activities, such as ground disturbance, vegetation management and dispersal processes. As a result, infrastructure habitats can function as refuges for native species, for example those declining in semi-natural grasslands, while also acting as corridors or entry points for invasive and ruderal plants. Understanding how plants establish, persist and interact with their environment in these habitats is therefore important from both ecological and conservation perspectives.
This special issue of Nordic Journal of Botany brings together three studies that examine plant performance, diversity and community composition in roadside and railway environments from complementary perspectives.
Read the Editorial in Nordic Journal of Botany, by Kroeger & Lennartsson (2026): Plant performance and diversity in roadside and railway habitats.
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