MOTORISTS are not the only ones to benefit from high-speed roads. Life in the fast lane also helps plant seeds travel far from home. So say Moritz von der Lippe and Ingo Kowarik of the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, who have shown that traffic may account for up to half of seed dispersal near motorways.
Seeds may stick to vehicles or be swept along in the airflow created by traffic. To find out how common this is, the researchers left seed traps deep within several long road tunnels, ensuring that the seeds collected were transported by vehicles rather than…
