FENCE ROW HABITATS FOR PLANTS MOVING BETWEEN FARMLAND FORESTS

For fencerows to be effective corridors for plants moving between farmland forest patches, the habitat quality must support the growth of arriving species. In a transplant experiment, we tested whether habitats in fencerows were the same as those in forest edges for a set of ground-layer plant species. Carex brunnescens, Geum aleppicum and Sanguinaria canadensis transplants responded differently to the two habitats. In the first growing season, healthy shoots of the woodland transplant species, Carex and Sanguinaria, were more frequent in forest edges than in fencerows. No species showed differences between edge types in numbers of plants regenerating after winter. Flower production and biomass of Carex were greater in forest edges, whereas Geum biomass was greater in fencerows. Multivariate responses (morphometry and biomass) to edge type showed fencerow habitat quality to be inappropriate to invoke fencerows as effective corridors for movement of woodland plants through fragmented landscapes.