Do you know examples where complex disturbance regimes and their impacts have been assessed in detail and, as a result, have been better managed so as to maintain one or more plant species?
I am looking for interesting examples of the detailed study and management of disturbance regimes for plant conservation that might illustrate the value of such research. While a complex set of factors and principles are often mentioned as part of the theory, I find few examples where sophisticated management has been implemented in consequence of study (i.e. beyond “simple” blanket treatments such as burning or grazing or selective forest harvesting). How useful is it to understand local disturbance processes and how these interact with the species present? How deep should we go? I’d be grateful for any examples and references.
I am speaking from California, which is probably the most disturbed area of the planet, where close to 100% of our understory was removed within the last 150 years, and replaced by over 1,000 exotic plants, mostly from Europe. "How deep should we go" is an issue we are just starting to ask here.
There is a sliding scale of research necessary, based on how much and how many remains are left of the original intact ecosystem that you can use as a template to reconstruct the ruins. It is like being an ecological archaeologist.
For example, my California grasslands-wildflower field project at http://www.ecoseeds.com/arastradero.html is going to cost many millions of dollars by the time the relatively small area of only 70 acres is completed. That is because very little remains of the original ecosystem and and reconstruct everything from scratch, square meter by square meter.
So the massive costs of research and test plot work needed to adequately manage any ecosystems anywhere in the world, needs to be discussed. We usually do not want to talk about the huge amount of money needed to learn how to manage ecosystems that, to date, we have not budgeted much money for management.
Thanks for voting up my answer. That one sentence should read:
That is because very little remains of the original ecosystem and I must reconstruct everything from scratch, square meter by square meter.
The most interesting part of the process, is learning the life histories of each species of plant by growing them from seeds, and also inventing methods to determine which species were originally grew there in what quantities, like rewriting the cake mix recipe.
In Western Europe, there is a long tradition in conservation management of semi-natural ecosystems. This management involves mowing, grazing, sod cutting, burning, irrigation with calcareous river water, drainage, plowing, liming, ... . And often a combination between these. The conservation management is a continuation of traditional land-uses, but it is also adjusted by scientific insights.
There are a lot of papers available which studied the management of a particular plant community. See for example Volis et al., 2005 (in Conservation Biology) for the habitat management of Gentiana pneumonanthe. They even use matrix population models in their analysis. A second example is the research performed in the Netherlands on the restoration of abandonded chalk grasslands (e.g. Bobbink & Willems, 1993 in Biodiversity and Conservation). Other well studied plant communities are Molinion grasslands and heathlands.
thanks Koenraad
Do you see research as having played a key role in determining the best management in these systems or is it a case of research documenting what the practitioners already know?
Because of the long tradition in conservation management, there is a lot of practical knowledge present with the conservation managers. This management involves often not more than mowing (1 or 2 times), grazing of a combination of both, but is adequate for the conservation of most plant communities.
I think however, research has played an important role in fine tuning the management of the more demanding plant communities or plant species (like Gentiana pneumonanthe, Molinion, ...). The research focussed more on the hydrology, soil acidity, seed banks, seed dispersal, habitat fragmentation, genetics (see for example Bakker & Berendse, 1999 in TREE, Butaye et al., 2005 in Base).
Douglas: I assume that you are interested in comparative studies evaluating protection and different kinds of management, and their effects on species diversity, - and attach a preliminary "opinion" paper. A more comprehensive study is currently under review, and will hopefully be available soon.
As a follow up, you may be interested in the resulting essay. Please see link below.
I thank you for your contributions in the acknowledgements.
Thanks again for the input.
Douglas
Article Disturbance and distributions: Avoiding exclusion in a warming world
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