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ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND PLANT GUILDS IN DEPRESSIONAL WETLANDS
Citation:
Lopez, R D., C. B. Davis, AND M. S. Fennessy. ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND PLANT GUILDS IN DEPRESSIONAL WETLANDS. LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY 17(1):43-56, (2002).
Impact/Purpose:
The primary objectives of this research are to:
Develop methodologies so that landscape indicator values generated from different sensors on different dates (but in the same areas) are comparable; differences in metric values result from landscape changes and not differences in the sensors;
Quantify relationships between landscape metrics generated from wall-to-wall spatial data and (1) specific parameters related to water resource conditions in different environmental settings across the US, including but not limited to nutrients, sediment, and benthic communities, and (2) multi-species habitat suitability;
Develop and validate multivariate models based on quantification studies;
Develop GIS/model assessment protocols and tools to characterize risk of nutrient and sediment TMDL exceedence;
Complete an initial draft (potentially web based) of a national landscape condition assessment.
This research directly supports long-term goals established in ORDs multiyear plans related to GPRA Goal 2 (Water) and GPRA Goal 4 (Healthy Communities and Ecosystems), although funding for this task comes from Goal 4. Relative to the GRPA Goal 2 multiyear plan, this research is intended to "provide tools to assess and diagnose impairment in aquatic systems and the sources of associated stressors." Relative to the Goal 4 Multiyear Plan this research is intended to (1) provide states and tribes with an ability to assess the condition of waterbodies in a scientifically defensible and representative way, while allowing for aggregation and assessment of trends at multiple scales, (2) assist Federal, State and Local managers in diagnosing the probable cause and forecasting future conditions in a scientifically defensible manner to protect and restore ecosystems, and (3) provide Federal, State and Local managers with a scientifically defensible way to assess current and future ecological conditions, and probable causes of impairments, and a way to evaluate alternative future management scenarios.
Description:
Plant guilds used to measure the relationships between wetland plant community characteristics and landscape change around 31 depressional wetlands in central Ohio, USA. Characteristics of certain plant guilds within each wetland site are correlated with changes in: (a) area of urban land cover, forest, grassland, agriculture, and open-water in the local vicinity of the wetland; (b) inter-wetland distance; and (c) wetland size (area). Taxa richness is negatively correlated with inter-wetland distance for all plant guilds, except submersed herbaceous plants. Taxa richness of the submersed herbaceous plant guild (usually less than 20% of the total number of plant species at a wetland) is positively correlated with the area of open-water in the local landscape and with the area of the wetland site itself. Significant positive correlations also exist between the area of open-water in the vicinity of the wetland and the proportion of submersed herbaceous plant taxa at the site, the number of native submersed herbaceous plant species, the submersed herbaceous plant perennial-to-annual ratio, and the number of avian-dispersed submersed herbaceous plant species at a site. The results suggest that a) the dominance of submersed herbaceous plant species at a site is related to dispersal constraints between wetlands, and (b ) the relatively slower physiological response of woody plants to local landscape change may result in their contribution to greater,ecological inertia' in the plant community as a whole. For these reasons, relationships between the plant community and land cover change may not always be observed unless analyzed at the level of plant-guild.