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Topic Grassland management
Question Is it possible to restore degraded grasslands back to high quality grassland ecosystems? Do you have any examples illustrating how this can be done/has been done?
Expert Dr Nick Williams
Dr Nick Williams is a plant ecologist at the University of Melbourne. Nick’s research investigates the ecology of urban areas in particular, grassland ecology and restoration, green infrastructure for climate change adaptation and weed invasions. Nick’s research has highlighted how surrounding landscapes influence the processes that occur in remnant habitats, such as edge effects and local extinctions, and, has developed ways to make urban areas more biodiversity friendly.
Native grasslands can be restored to a state approximating their original condition but this will take a lot of expertise and quite considerable financial resources, however it has been done in the past. One of my colleagues at Melbourne University Dr Paul Gibson-Roy had an extensive research project looking at how we can restore our native grasslands. He grows specialist seed mixtures and harvests seeds and then establishes them on areas that he has scraped away the existing top soil and weed seed and then puts down the native grassland seed that he has grown and lets them establish by...
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