A Model of Natural and Man-Induced Changes in Open Freshwater Wetlands on the Massachusetts Coastal Plain

Larson, Joseph S.; Mueller, Allan J.; MacConnell, William P.

doi:10.2307/2402645

Cited by 18 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The trait used to identify vegetation types is very simple: woody or not woody. The use of vegetation types or functional groups in monitoring changes in wetland vegetation is a well-established practice (Jaworski et al 1979, Larson et al 1980, Golet and Parkhurst 1981M. Jean, M. D'Aoust, L. Gratton, and A. Bouchard, 1992, Institut de Recherche en Biologie Végétal, unpublished report).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

River Hydrology and Riparian Wetlands: A Predictive Model for Ecological Assembly

Toner¹,

Keddy²

1997

Ecological Applications

104

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Riparian wetlands are under heavy pressure from hydrological changes produced by dam construction and water diversion projects. There has been ample documentation of the relationship between the extent of flooding and the composition of shoreline plant communities, yet we have few models that allow us to predict the impact of altered flooding regimes on riparian wetlands. In the humid temperate zone, river regulation commonly affects the distribution of two major vegetation types: wooded wetland and herbaceous wetland. The practice of reducing peak floods and augmenting minimum river flows is often followed by the succession of herbaceous to wooded wetland. We used logistic regression models to describe the distribution of wooded wetland as a function of all possible combinations of seven hydrological variables. The variables were chosen to reflect the depth, duration, and time of flooding and were calculated for four different time intervals (3, 7, 12, and 18 growing seasons). Our best model was a combination of two variables: the last day of the first flood and the time of the second flood. For three of the four time intervals, the vegetation type was correctly identified as herbaceous or wooded for Ͼ80% of the sample points. Our results suggest that models based on a few key environmental variables can be valuable tools in the conservation management of the vegetation of temperate and boreal zone wetlands.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

River Hydrology and Riparian Wetlands: A Predictive Model for Ecological Assembly

Toner¹,

Keddy²

1997

Ecological Applications

104

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“…Repeated aerial photographs and/or satellite images play a major role in setting up inventories of natural resources because they give a visual assessment of land cover changes over a period of time and provide quantitative information on the trade-offs between different land cover categories. Historical investigations of land cover changes have helped to acquire information on salt marsh vegetation and wetlands (Larson et al 1980;Civco et al 1986;Jean and Bouchard 1991), mountain-ous regions (Schreier et al 1994;Schweik et al 1997), dry lands in the tropics (Mwalyosi 1992), coastal sage scrub (Davis et al 1994), and vegetation succession on dunes (van Dorp et al 1985). In these and other studies, most results are in line with general assumptions about land cover changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land Cover Changes Between 1958 and 1986 in Kalu District, Southern Wello, Ethiopia

Tekle¹,

Hedlund²

2000

Mountain Research and Development

205

108

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“…This fact suggests that many of the wetlands presently dominated by herbaceous species have been maintained in this condition for over 40 years, presumably even in the absence of fire, Although prescribed burning is a widespread management practice used by the U.S. Forest Service at the SRS, wetlands are rarely burned and wildfires are immediately suppressed. Similarly stable freshwater wetlands (e.g., shallow marshes) in Massachusetts have been reported (Larsen et al 1980). Although it is likely that natural occurrence of lire was once an important disturbance agent influencing species richness in herbaceous wetlands (Kirkman and Sharitz 1994), the dominance of herbaceous vegetation seems controlled primarily by hydrologic conditions (Kirkman 1992).…”

Section: Patterns Of Changementioning

confidence: 90%

Vegetation changes and land-use legacies of depression wetlands of the western coastal plain of South Carolina: 1951–1992

et al. 1996

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We examined historical patterns of land use of depression wetlands (Carolina bay and bay-like wetlands) to determine if a relationship between vegetative successional changes over a 41-year period and previous human disturbances (primarily agricultural) could be established. Land cover was interpreted from 1951 (black and white) and 1992 (false color infrared) aerial photography of the Savannah River Site (a 780 km 2 federal nuclear facility in which wetlands have been relatively undisturbed since 1951). Patterns of change from one land cover to another were detected by constructing a series of frequency tables. About one fourth of the 299 wetlands identified were either pasture or cultivated in 1951, and the majority had been ditched for drainage. Agriculturally disturbed wetlands primarily became mixed hardwood/pine or were converted to pine plantations by 1992; however, no successional differences between wetlands that were cultivated versus pasture were detectable. The type of land use of many of the depression wetlands prior to 1951 probably was determined by physical characteristics of the wetlands (e.g., topographic position, size, and hydrologic features). Thus, in many cases, separation of recovery trajectories from other successional pathways, initial hydrogeomorphic differences, and/or continued human influences is not possible in this study. However, from this change-detection study, we recognize that many of the currently protected depression wetlands at SRS were disturbed by agricultural practices or were impacted by hydrologic alterations prior to t951, implying considerable resilience in the recovery toward a functioning wetland condition if hydrologic regimes are restored. A significant finding of this study is the relative stability of herb-dominated bays, which indicates that this vegetation type is not necessarily a successional continuum toward an eventual hardwood forest, at least in the temporal scale of the study. Thus, we suggest that management prescriptions for the restoration/conservation of herb-dominated wetlands should incorporate concepts of temporal stability within a framework of cyclical hydrologic and vegetation changes.

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A Model of Natural and Man-Induced Changes in Open Freshwater Wetlands on the Massachusetts Coastal Plain

Cited by 18 publications

References 2 publications

River Hydrology and Riparian Wetlands: A Predictive Model for Ecological Assembly

River Hydrology and Riparian Wetlands: A Predictive Model for Ecological Assembly

Land Cover Changes Between 1958 and 1986 in Kalu District, Southern Wello, Ethiopia

Vegetation changes and land-use legacies of depression wetlands of the western coastal plain of South Carolina: 1951–1992

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