Researchers at Acadia University have completed a study of rockrose, an endangered plant species from the sandy badlands of the Annapolis Valley.
Rockrose, also known as Canadian frostweed, grows in dry, sandy and acidic soils. However, its natural habitat has been reduced by 97 percent due to agriculture, traffic and housing construction, leading to a massive population decline.
Kendra Sampson of the KC Irving Environmental Science Center in Acadia, who led the research, said she collected seeds and sand from the plant’s natural habitat and used them to propagate it in the lab.
“This plant is a small part of a bigger picture,” Sampson said. “We’re looking at a few individual plants, but they all contribute to the big goal of the mandate to maintain biodiversity in these ecosystems.”
The study found that a species of fungus, the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus, formed a mutually beneficial relationship with the plant’s roots, helping it absorb water and nutrients from the acidic soils of the sandy wastelands.
Kendra Sampson’s research was part of her honors program at Acadia University. She now works at the KC Irving Environmental Science Center. (Cassia Lawrence)
“(AMF) form a root-like structure that is much smaller in diameter than plant roots,” she said. “They penetrate much deeper into the soil and can take up nutrients for the plants, so phosphorus or nitrogen, and even get water for the plants.”
Sampson hopes the study will help conservationists better understand the relationships between species on the sandbars and how protecting one species can benefit all the others.
She said the specimens she grew in the lab could be planted back in the wild, and the mushrooms could be used as an environmentally friendly alternative to fertilizers.
After sterilizing the seeds, Sampson and her team placed them in a jelly-like substrate called tissue culture, which is full of nutrients. Then they propagated them to produce multiple specimens. (Craig Paisley/CBC)
The sandbars in the Annapolis Valley are extremely sensitive ecosystems that rely on natural wildfires to clear tall vegetation.
The species that live there trade nutrient-rich soil for bright sunshine, which is why AMF is important for all plants that grow in this sandy, acidic soil, Sampson said.
Alain Belliveau, collections manager at the EC Smith Herbarium in Acadia, was part of a team of specialists that developed the Nova Scotia Rockrose Recovery Plan in 2021.
He monitors the facility and examines its population trends every few years to get a feel for how the sandbanks are doing.
“This is in large part because these plants that we call endangered species are just the tip of the iceberg,” Belliveau said.
“The rockrose is so rare and so threatened that we consider it a representative of the entire ecosystem.”
The rockrose supports the sand desert ecosystem by filtering water and providing a habitat for native wildlife. (Craig Paisley/CBC)
Belliveau hopes that more studies like this will improve their efforts to protect rockrose and other endangered species in Nova Scotia’s increasingly scarce sandbars.
He said he would like to see the provincial government, universities and non-profit organizations invest in more research, as they struggle to secure funding and staff.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
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