military-ecology
Military ecology examines how military activities, installations, and conflicts shape ecosystems and the plant communities within them. Bombing ranges, training grounds, and abandoned military zones often create unique disturbance regimes and land-use histories that drive distinctive vegetation dynamics, invasive species spread, and soil chemistry changes. Studying these landscapes offers plant scientists insights into how flora colonizes disturbed or contaminated soils and how populations recover—or fail to—under extreme anthropogenic pressure.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-27
A Slovenian military training ground has heavily contaminated surface soils with lead and copper from shooting activities, with lead levels up to 190 times natural background levels. Scots pine trees show promise as a natural cleanup tool for these metal-polluted sites.
Lead concentrations in topsoil at the shooting range reached 7,210 mg/kg — 190 times the natural background level and 13 times Slovenia's legal limit.
Copper peaked at 952 mg/kg, more than 53 times background levels, while organic pollutants like oils and solvents remained below national alert thresholds.
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) demonstrated measurable phytoremediation potential for lead- and copper-contaminated soils in forested karst environments.
