Roadside ecosystems are the managed areas adjacent to roads that are undervalued for their ecological functions. Reducing roadside mowing can create habitat, lower management costs, and reduce fragmentation. However, reducing mowing raises concerns invasive plants may proliferate. Our goal was to quantify whether decreasing mowing would increase invasive plant cover. Using Modified-Whittaker plots at roadside sites under three types of vegetation management — Never Mowed (N=5), Reduce Mowed (N=5), Fully Mowed (N=5) — we compared plant diversity and percent cover. Never Mowed sites had higher total species richness than Fully Mowed sites (P=0.046), the highest native species richness at the two largest spatial scales (1000-m2 P=0.0001, 100-m2 P<0.0001), the lowest introduced species richness at three spatial scales (100-m2 P=0.003, 10-m2 P=0.003, 1-m2 =P<0.0001), and the lowest introduced species percent cover (P=0.0001). We did not observe differences in invasive species richness or percent cover under any management type. Reducing mowing roadsides facilitates biodiversity and maintains habitat important for rare and endangered wildlife.

Sara Wigginton is a Research Associate at The University of Rhode Island, in the Meyerson Invasion and Restoration Laboratory. Sara completed her Master's Degree in Ecology and Ecosystem Sciences at The University of Rhode Island in 2015 where her work focused on monitoring the effects of roadside restoration on stormwater filtration and invasive species colonization. Currently, Sara is involved in studying the genetics and ecology of the wetland invader Phragmites australis as a study species to gain understanding of invasion ecology and the repercussion of invasion on restoration efforts.