The Monte Desert in Argentina is a tough place for plants to grow. Temperatures can change dramatically, from cold to warm. It rarely rains in the Monte Desert, so getting enough water is a constant problem. There are few nutrients in the dry soil for a hungry plant.
The Monte Desert has a long history of oil drilling. Now, fracking, a type of oil drilling, is going on across the desert. Oil drilling has left hundreds of sites where plants have been completely wiped out. When the drilling sites are done, plants struggle to regrow in the places they once lived.
Many of these old drilling sites in the Monte Desert are restored with a process called assisted natural regeneration. Assisted natural regeneration means restoring plants by encouraging their natural growth. Instead of reseeding or replanting the old drill sites, restorers often plow deep furrows (ditches) across the site, where water can collect and growing plants are sheltered from harsh cold.
In a 2024 study, researchers from the National University of Comahue studied whether assisted natural regeneration helps plants regrow at former drilling sites. Florencia del Mar González was the lead researcher on the study. The researchers found that the restored sites still had much lower plant cover and diversity of plant species when compared to undrilled sites in the Monte Desert.
The researchers found that 40% of the species that might be found in an undrilled site were found in the restored sites. Some of the plant species found in the restored sites were ones the researchers didn’t expect.
Florencia thinks her research has at least one useful lesson for restoration in the Monte Desert. She thinks that the furrows on oil-drilling sites should be deeper than the required 15 cm. Deeper furrows would provide more water and slightly cooler temperatures than the surrounding soils to help plants grow back.
David Brown adapted this story for Mongabay Kids. It is based on an article by Claudia Geib, published on Mongabay News.
