Many grassland species can survive in road verges with suitable conditions and management. Therefore, road verges have the potential to preserve grassland species that are declining in the cultural landscape due to discontinued traditional land use-practices. In this study, we analyse species-rich road verges in a landscape-historical context to examine 1) the roads’ function as refugia for grassland species and 2) where in the landscape roads are particularly important for the preservation of grassland species. We compared the species composition of species-rich road verges with that of the surrounding landscape and related it to ongoing and historical land use north of Stockholm, Sweden. Road verges bordering semi-natural pastures had more species in common with the surrounding landscape than verges through forest. However forest verges harboured grassland species that probably are a biological cultural heritage of historical forest grazing. The Swedish Transport Administration adapts road verge management in species-rich roads to preserve their species, primarily by delaying mowing times. Situations where species have the road verge as their last outpost place additional demands on management. Grading of verges for drainage reasons poses a significant risk of eradicating species, including red-listed plants, from the entire landscape where roadsides are the only remaining habitat. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods to identify roadside plant refugias of conservation concern, as well as adapt methods for drainage maintenance and other activities that risk eradicate the flora of species-rich verges. For example, vegetation islands could be saved as dispersal cores at grading.

Road verges constitute habitats for plants and can often harbour a rich flora. Species have colonized the verges from the surrounding landscape, but also with help of transports dispersing seeds. Once established, plant populations may persist for a long time in the verges, thereby serving as biological cultural heritage (BCH) from historical landscapes, land-use, and travels. We explore how plants as BCH contribute with new historical information about roads, travels, and the landscapes roads went through, in this case a Swedish landscape with mainly forest and some abandoned arable fields. During the last 300 years, the location of the roads between villages has shifted several times to meet new requirements for transportation. This allowed us to study roads of different ages, and compare them with verges along modern roads, to see if differences in plant composition could be attributed to road age, historical land use, and types of transports on the roads. We found that all types of roads were much richer in grassland species than the surrounding landscape. Some of the road species likely originated from forest pastures and leys that historically existed next to the road, but which were now rare or extinct from the landscape due to ceased traditional management. Other species likely originated from historical transports of hay and cereals. Both categories were more abundant in old than in younger roads, provided that the road habitats were maintained by sufficient light conditions and moderate disturbance from vehicles.

The aim of the study was to receive knowledge about the potential risks for bumblebees living in road verges along roads with different traffic intensities. Roads have been suggested to act as important habitats for pollinating insects but also as ecological traps, attracting the insects to potentially dangerous habitats. We looked at mortality in bumblebee workers from commersial bumblebee colonies in road verges along roads with traffic intensities between 25-25.000 cars per day. We did also also look at flight direction and flight height in bumblebees leaving the nest. During my talk, I will present the results from our study and hope to inspire people to look at roads and road verges from a new perspective.

Road verges serve as vital habitats for vascular plant communities and the dependent organisms, yet over half of Sweden's ecologically significant road verges face threats from invasive alien plants, notably Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl. This study investigates L. polyphyllus' impact on species richness, diversity, and biotic and abiotic characteristics of plant communities in road verges across two mid-Swedish regions. Twenty-four road verges of high nature value in the counties of Värmland, Örebro, Uppsala, and Västmanland were selected. In each road verge we established a pair of 1 m2 plots, one dominated by L. polyphyllus and the other with minimal or no presence of the invasive species. We compared species richness, effective number of species, and occurrence probability among functional groups across plot types and regions. Results show L. polyphyllus significantly diminishes species richness and diversity in road verge communities. However, the extent of this impact varied based on pre-existing community compositions, with the western region hosting more low competitive species typical for nutrient poor soils compared to the eastern region. We found that invasion by L. polyphyllus is a serious threat to vascular plant communities but that the response is context dependent. Communities with high abundance of vulnerable and poor competitive plant species should be prioritised for eradication and control of the invasive.

Transportation is one of the human activities that have the most remarkable environmental impact on Earth. Estimated at 36 million kilometers worldwide, roads are one of the main components of the transportation infrastructure, generating many environmental impacts from their construction and throughout their lifecycle.

Associated with the road is the roadside, which is a green edge between transport infrastructure and the surrounding environment. So far, most definitions have considered roadsides only at the landscape level, describing them as green and linear elements between roads and adjacent ecosystems. In this study, we used a systems perspective to describe the roadside as an ecosystem, with the aim of analyzing each compartment and the interconnections between them.

An analysis of the French technical and landscape definitions of roadsides led us to identify five key compartments: soil, water, air, fauna, and flora. A bibliographic review was performed using Web of Science to determine the specific characteristics of roadside environments. This review sought to cross-reference information on the main compartments identified in the roadside ecosystem (soil, water, air, flora, and fauna) with the technical components (berm, ditch, and slope that compose the French roadside) to understand variations within the ecosystem.

The proposed approach allowed an understanding of the characteristics of each compartment and then helped to define the bio-physical-chemical variables to describe the state of the ecosystem. These variables will subsequently enable to assess the environmental capacity of roadsides, and the environmental benefits they can provide to society.

The railway is one of the innovations that has influenced modern social development the most. When the first main lines began to be built in Sweden during the mid-19th century, cultivation was an integral component of the railway system, comprising aesthetic gardens, protective cultivation, and kitchen gardens. Despite the large areas and resources this cultivation demanded, our knowledge about why gardens were established, and when attitudes towards them began to change, has been surprisingly limited.

The aim of the presentation is to discuss the results from my PhD-thesis “The State as Gardener: Railway Cultivation from the Art of Improving Nature to Bequest” (2022), with the purpose to analyse and discuss the events and ideals that characterised the rise and fall of the gardening organisation of the Swedish State Railways. Chronologically the study includes two key periods: the construction phase of 1855–1875 and the decline phase of 1955–1975. The former was characterised by the ideal of “the art of improving nature” and that of nation-building. High modernity in the second half of the 20th century led to initial downsizing and eventually, in 1973 to the closure of the plant nurseries and revised tasks for the gardeners. Prior to the latter changes, “wills” were drawn up.

With the concepts of modernity and place as points of departure, the presentation discusses how the transition, from gardens being fundamental to the railway system to their being phased out from the organisation, can be understood and explained.

Road verges can sometimes support high densities of flowering plants and could therefore provide new opportunities for the conservation of pollinating insects. However, management of the road verges and traffic amount might limit the benefits for pollination insects. In a crossed study design, we separated mowing regimes and road verge habitat classification along a gradient of traffic intensity, to investigate if a mowing regime designed to enhance plant diversity can also benefit wild bees and butterflies, and if traffic limits the conservation potential of road verges. Road verges that were mown less often had higher flower densities, and there was a positive relationship between flower density and wild bee abundance and species richness. In valuable road verges, butterfly abundance and species richness was higher if they were mown once instead of twice. Traffic intensity had a substantial negative impact on abundance and species richness of wild bees and butterflies. Higher traffic intensities limited the positive relationship between plant and butterfly species richness that we found at lower traffic intensities. Increasing width of the road verges buffered negative effects of the traffic on wild bee as well as butterfly abundances, and on wild bee species richness. To support wild bee and butterfly diversity, we recommend actions to enhance plant species richness and flower resource availability, and to focus these conservation efforts on roads with low traffic intensity, or on wide road verges.