with Xenia Tchoumi, who, like many Russians, has a fondness for ice-free ports:
A long-running experiment led by Göttingen University, Germany, and including the IPB University, Bogor and Jambi University in Indonesia, has investigated how ecological restoration promotes biodiversity recovery in oil palm plantations in Sumatra. Their findings reveal that establishing islands of trees within large oil palm monocultures can promote the recovery of native tree diversity through natural regeneration. The results were published in Science.
The international research team established 52 tree islands of varying sizes and diversity of planted trees in a conventional industrial oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. This innovative experimental setup provided valuable insights into how initial restoration decisions influence biodiversity in oil palm-dominated landscapes.
For instance, standard plantation management usually includes suppression of the undergrowth by using large amounts of herbicides and fertilizers. However, a diverse range of native species successfully colonized the tree islands, including trees that are endemic to Sundaland, meaning that they are only found in this region. Islands of trees in an oil palm plantation. Credit: Gustavo Paterno
Within just six years, many of these trees have already begun fruiting, with some exceeding 15 meters in height. Interestingly, alien species—meaning those not native to the study region—represented only ten percent of the natural regeneration in the restored areas.
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