The role of aftercare in plant translocation

Plant translocation can increase the chances of long-term survival of threatened plant species; nevertheless, can be costly and challenging, with unknowns in the pre- and post-release phases, limiting success. Methodological advances have been made in the pre-release phase but long-term monitoring and post-release site management (i.e., “aftercare”) are not always applied and almost neglected in the literature despite being frequently effective for identifying and mitigating unexpected threats (e.g., interspecific competition, herbivory) to outplant survival. Aiming to fill this gap, we reviewed published and gray literature on 296 translocations to shed light on the importance of aftercare on translocation outcome. We identified the most common aftercare techniques, then we performed a meta-analysis on a subset of studies that were specifically designed to test the effect of aftercare against a control (i.e., no aftercare). The most common aftercare techniques were competition reduction, water irrigation and plant protection. Aftercare significantly increased the percentage of survival of plants when herbivory reduction and other understorey species were enhanced. Aftercare reported also a positive trend toward improved qualitative outcome when plants were protected or competition was mitigated. Nevertheless, more evidence is needed on the importance and effectiveness of aftercare techniques. Long-term monitoring and post-release site management should be the post-translocation standard in plant translocations when ethical and possible, with plant protection, competition limitation and water irrigation being applied when needed to reduce transplant mortality. To provide statistically supported data on the effect of aftercare on translocation outcome, aftercare should be tested against a control when feasible.