Fynbos is a special community of plants found only in South Africa. Some of the most famous are the proteas (big, bold flowers), ericas (delicate, bell-shaped blooms), and restios (grassy-looking reeds).<\/p>\n
Previous research<\/a>\u00a0found that seedbanks of fynbos invaded by alien trees seldom survive more than three generations (roughly 24-36 years for this fynbos type).<\/p>\n Our new findings mean that plants can be\u00a0restored\u00a0to ecosystems using seeds banked long ago. Ecological restoration is the process of helping nature heal by bringing back native plants and animals that have been lost from the system.<\/p>\n The soil therefore acts like a time capsule, allowing us to see what fynbos plants were present in the past. These could be species thought extinct, species unknown to science, or very rare species that exist in tiny numbers.<\/p>\n This is all encouraging news as a number of fynbos species in the Cape region are considered to be close to extinction. This is due to a combination of factors, including urbanisation and invasions of alien plants, particularly trees like pine, wattle and eucalyptus (gum).<\/p>\n Particularly impacted by development was the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, a type of fynbos that grows only on the sandy, flat areas of the Cape. Today\u00a0only 5% of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos is conserved<\/a>, but this is highly threatened by invasive alien plants, and only about 1% is intact. The largest and most intact remnant is found within\u00a0Tokai Park<\/a>, an important conservation area within\u00a0Table Mountain National Park<\/a>, a world heritage site.<\/p>\n Our study<\/a> investigated the endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos at Tokai Park to see whether it had restoration potential following over a century of pine plantations. Trees \u2013 like pine, wattle and gum \u2013 were brought to South Africa by colonisers during the 1800s to supply wood. These trees became invasive aliens that spread rapidly into local ecosystems, crowding out fynbos.<\/p>\n Tokai Park is of global interest because of the vegetation that occurs there: Cape Flats Sand Fynbos contains 14 species that exist only in the Cape and more than 42\u00a0Red List<\/a>\u00a0plant species \u2013 two of these extinct in the wild. One example is the\u00a0Whorl Heath<\/a>\u00a0which is being restored to the park.<\/p>\n We first knew there were living fynbos seed banks at Tokai Park when\u00a0an accidental fire in lower Tokai Park in the 1990s<\/a>\u00a0revealed that beneath the pine plantations, some fynbos seeds had survived and the fynbos regenerated. Fynbos seeds will lie dormant in the soil until the smoke or heat of a wildfire triggers them to germinate and grow.<\/p>\n However, this anecdotal observation needed to be confirmed with research. Which fynbos species were able to bank their seeds? How many different kinds of seeds were in the soil at any one point, and in what numbers?<\/p>\n We studied the seeds stored in the soil, to see which species had banked seeds, and whether these were able to grow after one generation of fynbos was restored following the removal of pine plantations. The seeds were taken to a nursery and exposed to smoke to germinate.<\/p>\n We found that the number of live fynbos seeds in the soil after more than a century of plantation forestry was surprisingly high. The restoration work at Tokai Park has been happening over many years now, and has taken a phased approach. As plantations are clear-felled, the land is restored. The land has already been declared a national park.<\/p>\n During this restoration, which can be thought of as opening the seed bank time capsules, there have been surprises \u2013\u00a0one of the species<\/a>\u00a0that emerged was new to science.<\/p>\n These time capsules of historical fynbos varieties offer enormous hope for restoring indigenous fynbos across the Cape floral region.<\/p>\n Because of the forestry records we have, we know that these seeds were banked between 40 and 130 years ago \u2013 they are therefore very old for seeds. We really don\u2019t know what seeds we might still find in the soil (extinct species, or species new to science), or exactly how much longer they can survive.<\/p>\n We cannot afford to wait.<\/p>\n South Africa has committed<\/a>\u00a0to restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030. With only 5% of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos conserved, there is 25% to go to reach the target for this ecosystem. Restoration is the only way to achieve this target.<\/p>\n However, removing the last of Tokai Park\u2019s pine plantations has been delayed. The forestry company leasing the land should have harvested the last trees by 2024, but has not done so. There are also\u00a0lobby groups<\/a>\u00a0who want to retain the pine trees for shade, rather than see the native fynbos restored.<\/p>\n With appropriate management actions \u2013 such as clearing alien plants and holding restoration burns to allow fynbos to grow \u2013 the fynbos in Tokai Park can be restored.<\/p>\n This would be spontaneous recovery, requiring little more than a fire to stimulate the germination of the seeds. It avoids the costs of active restoration \u2013 where ecologists would need to find hundreds of different species in other areas, collect their seeds, store and germinate the seeds and then replant them. This would be a much more expensive and challenging endeavour.<\/p>\n It is intriguing that fynbos seed banks can persist for such long periods under these adverse conditions. However, they will not persist forever, and we do not know when that tipping point may be for some of the rarer species. We need to open the time capsule now, before it is lost to us forever.<\/p>\n Alanna J. Rebelo<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Patricia M. Holmes<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Anthony G. Rebelo<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Shaeleigh Martin<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Safiyyah Hattas<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Stuart Hall<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Karen J. Esler<\/a><\/span> (2024) Soil seed bank resilience in passively restored endangered Sand Fynbos following a century of pine plantations. Plants, People, Planet.<\/p>\nDormant seed banks<\/h4>\n
What this means<\/h4>\n
What needs to happen next<\/h4>\n
Read the research article published in Plants. People, Planet.<\/em><\/h4>\n
About the authors<\/h4>\n
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