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Adaptive Restoration of a Former Wet Meadow

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Adaptive Restoration of a Former Wet Meadow leaflet 33, April 2014 Adaptive restoration of a former wet meadow photo: Joy Zedler he Arboretum has embarked on a long-term project What should be the restoration target? southwest of Teal Pond to restore 12 acres of T Few trees and shrubs are evident on the 1937 aerial wetland (hereafter Teal Pond Wetland; TPW; Sullivan photo (Fig. 2), and the site appears to have had open, and Doherty 2013) (Fig. 1). Restoration is underway, herbaceous cover. But now, the hydrological conditions even though it is not entirely clear how to achieve the are altered by inflows of partly treated urban runoff Mills St. Entrance desired target or exactly what that outcomeR6 should be. Mills St. Lot entering the site from Curtis Prairie on the west and For decades, the wetland supported a dense thicketR7 Arbor Dr. Lot from a retention basin (Pond 2) on the south. Without of Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) and other invasive frequent prescribed fire, woody plants readily dominate. shrubs, and several largeMonroe trees, St. R3 mostlyHo Nee Um Pond Cottonwood Lake Wingra R2 Q4 Q5 Wingra Oak Because Leopold (1934) laid out the Arboretum’s (Populus deltoidesMarion Dunn), became Savannaprominent over the years. Prairie & Pond Q1Q3 task as returning the land to examples of pre-European- A long list of questions has been tackled by settlement communities, a sedge meadow would be a Arboretum land P3care staff, a UW class in Adaptive suitable target. But, like many restoration sites, changes Restoration, and a doctoral student, aided by many Spring Trail Lot Wingra Marsh in watersheds and climate couldRedwing preclude restoration volunteers, including weekend work parties and Marsh Arboretum Drive Gardner Marsh to any specific historical condition.J5 Many prominent Americorps crews. Here we present progress to date Stevens ecologists don’t expect to turn back the clock, but that on the adaptivePond restoration process, aimed at testing Big Spring Balden St. K4 doesn’tK5 mean we shouldn’t try (see Arboretum research, N5 alternative approaches while learning how best to Skunk Cabbage N7 Wingra Woods Bridgefeatured in the December 2013 Scientific American). restore TPW.Viburnum K2 N8 Garden K3 Fish Hatchery Road Wingra J4 Springs Arboretum Drive Lot K1 G7 J3 G6 M1 Carver Street G5 Overlook Gallistel Woods Prairie G4 G1 Longenecker Gardens J1 Arboretum Visitor Center Martin Street G2G3 MainArboretum Parking Visitor Ar Centerea J2 F7 F6 Martin St. Lot Main Parking Area M3 Native Plant Lost City Forest Garden F4 F5 Teal Juniper Pond A4 Knoll F3 F1 A7 F2 Southeast Marsh L8 A3 A5 Teal Pond A6 Wetlands Seminole Hwy. Arboretum Drive L3 L4 Entrance L5 L6 E1 Curtis CurtisParking Lot Lot B1 E2 Pond 2 B3 B2 A8 E5 C3 C1 B4 E6 Stormwater B5 Curtis Prairie Curtis Management 0 500 1000 1500 Noe Woods C4 B6 D8 C6 Pond Coyote Research E8 B7 Pond Facility feet D7 Leopold A9 Figure 1. Central area of Pines the 1200-acre UW-Madison Seminole Hwy. Hwy. Seminole D5 Pedestrian Tunnel West Beltline (Hwy 12/18) Arboretum in Madison, WI. T8 T7 T2 T3 T6 1 T5 Grady Tract Lot T1 Evjue Pine U1 Forest Grady Trails Community types X1 U2 Kettle Hole Forest V1 U3 U4 Y7 Bike Route Horticulture X2 Y1 Hiking / Skiing Allowed West Grady Y2 Coniferous forest Y3 Hiking / No Skiing X3 Knoll Y8 Southwest Grady Oak Wheelchair Accessible Deciduous forest Grady Oak Savanna Savanna Y4 Z2 East Boardwalk Knoll Savanna Z3 X5 Egy Mound X6 Z1 Z4 Council Ring Prairie Z5 Greene Prairie Parking Z6 Wetlands X8 Open water Z7 Southeast Entrance (from Knollwood Conservancy) Buer zone Figure 2. Teal Pond Wetland in 1937. Photo from Arboretum Figure 3. Shrub removal in 2013 using a forestry mower. Archives. Note the “wall of shrubs” in the background, which is how the foreground appeared before work began. Arboretum staff agreed that invasive exotic shrubs (mostly Buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica) should be removed, so brush-cutting became a high priority. In 2010 we asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for a grant to clear shrubs using a brush-mower, including a corridor along the stream that flows from TPW to Lake Wingra. Unfortunately, FWS did not have sufficient funds that year, and our first proposal was not funded (but see below). How does hand-cutting compare to brush mowing? From 2007-2011, field staff and Marian Farrior’s weekend work parties hand-cut brush around the northern edge of TPW and in 2012, they cleared two large plots along the south edge for experimental sedge plantings by Jim Doherty (2013). The hand-cutting work included removing the cut stems from the site, leaving a “clean palate” for understory to self-establish. However, hand-cutting was slow-going. At an acre or two per year, it would take up to a decade to clear Figure 4. Trees (yellow dots) that remained after forest TPW. mowing and areas of impounded water (blue) in spring 2013 within Teal Pond Wetland. GPS survey by M. Haber; GIS map Then luck began to turn. The Arboretum by M. Wegener. received help for shrub mowing from the power line construction project and began mechanized removal of 4 inches diameter (Fig. 3). Depending on the species, shrubs in 2012. Then, in winter 2012/2013, FWS and some of these trees will be removed at a later date, a donor offered funds for a forestry mower (Fig. 3) to leaving selected native tree and shrub species for animal clear the remaining 10 acres. In a matter of weeks, the habitat. Following shrub removal, a hardy volunteer, mower shredded all but the trees that were larger than Melissa Haber, used a high-precision GPS unit to map 2 many of the remaining trees in TPW (Fig. 4). At the woody debris certainly qualifies as novel! Prescribed same time, she mapped areas that ponded rainfall and fire might remove the woody litter, but if the debris is runoff during one of the Arboretum’s wettest spring too wet to burn in 2014, efforts to re-establish sedge seasons (Fig. 4). Her map shows that much of the site meadow vegetation might be impaired. Students in the ponds water and has variable topography and spatial Adaptive Restoration Lab suggested experimentation for variation in hydrologic conditions. coping with the remaining layer of woody debris. Although the mower cut the woody vegetation in record time, it spit out the shredded remains as debris Which trees remained after brush mowing? and transformed the ecosystem into a savanna-like If brush removal left behind a “typical” wet savanna, community with a novel dead-wood litter layer (Fig. 5). then retaining the existing trees would be an easy target Planners and practitioners talk about “novel restoration for TPW restoration. But first, we needed to answer sites” and our proposed sedge meadow with its layer of two questions: Which trees remained and what would characterize a “wet savanna”—preferably one in the 1840s, as envisioned by Leopold’s goal of representing pre-European-settlement vegetation. Wisconsin has various remnant savannas, but they are mostly small, disturbed, and on dry sites. Few wet savannas are available to serve as a target for TPW. In the search for quantitative data on wet savanna composition, three students came to the rescue--Nicolas Galleguillos, Jason Skwierawski and Thor Jeppson. They sampled TPW in October 2013 using six transects each with five 100-m2 circular plots, for a total of 30 plots concentrated where trees remained (Fig. 4). They Figure 5. Early in the restoration process, following brush encountered 51 trees belonging to 10 species (Table 1), removal, TPW had an open canopy of trees with a novel dead- with many large Cottonwood and Bur Oak (Quercus wood litter layer. May 2013 photo by J. Zedler. macrocarpa). No. in 30 % Basal Tree species % Frequency IV plots Area Populus deltoides 20 27.78 80.36 49.12 Quercus macrocarpa 16 33.33 10.61 25.11 Fraxinus pennsylvanica 8 19.44 7.03 14.05 Carya ovata 1 2.78 0.82 1.85 Ulmus rubra 1 2.78 0.50 1.74 Quercus bicolor 1 2.78 0.25 1.66 Amelanchier sp. 1 2.78 0.17 1.64 Ulmus rubra 1 2.78 0.14 1.62 Rhamnus cathartica 1 2.78 0.08 1.61 Rhamnus frangula 1 2.78 0.05 1.60 Total 51 100 100 100 Table 1. Tree composition and importance value (IV=mean of relative density, relative frequency and relative basal area) at TPW after understory brush was cleared. The basal area totaled 21.24 m2/ha; and average basal area was 12.50 dm2/tree (for more data, see Bot670 Class Report, 2013). 3 Which trees should be left in place? Lower Greene Prairie has a stand of Swamp White Oaks that were planted several years ago and that have To achieve Leopold’s vision, we sought additional proven tolerant of urban runoff. This species and at least information on historical wet savannas, to see how well some strains of Bur Oak are known to survive flooding. TPW (Table 1) matched the composition of historical These observations led to the suggestion to promote a wet savannas. Obviously, top priority would be to avoid Swamp White Oak and Bur Oak savanna overstory at non-native species, and the field staff removed European both TPW and Lower Greene Prairie (Bot670 Class Alder as one of the first restoration measures. Alders Report 2013), but we still had no natural model. thought to be the native Alnus rugosa were planted in Thus, the Adaptive Restoration class recommended TPW in the 1950’s, but when the European species an experimental approach to determine how the (Alnus glutinosa) became invasive in the 1960s, Kline Arboretum could increase the abundance of Swamp (1992) suggested that they had been planted by mistake.
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