Restoration of Wet Fen Meadows by Topsoil Removal: Vegetation Development and Germination Biology of Fen Species

Patzelt, Annette; Wild, Ulrich; Pfadenhauer, Jörg

doi:10.1046/j.1526-100x.2001.009002127.x

Cited by 107 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Other studies in different kinds of wetlands have found similar results. In a United Kingdom wetland prairie, productivity was significantly reduced after topsoil-removal (Tallowin and Smith 2001), and in Germany, Patzelt et al (2001) found plant cover continually decreased with greater depths of topsoil-removal in fens. Unlike cover, total and native species diversity was not lower in topsoil-removal sites, but instead was similar to reference wetlands on a 1 m 2 scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Restoring wetland prairies: tradeoffs among native plant cover, community composition, and ecosystem functioning

et al. 2012

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Abstract. Despite a U.S. goal of 'no-net-loss' of wetland structure and function, restoration performance standards are typically based on limited criteria, with soil carbon, nutrient, and microbial criteria being particularly rare. We examined plant community composition, diversity, and various soil functional variables for two different restoration techniques, topsoil-removal and solarization, in wetland prairies in Oregon, USA. We compared three site-level replicates of each treatment to three high-quality remnant wetland prairies. We found significant tradeoffs among diversity, native cover, and ecosystem functioning between restoration treatments. Wetlands with topsoil removed had similar diversity to remnants, but lower productivity, soil carbon and nitrogen, microbial biomass, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal infection rates. Solarization sites had the highest native cover, but diversity was approximately half that of remnant wetlands. We attribute this to both a priority effect of seeded native perennial bunchgrasses establishing early in the restoration process and competitively excluding other species, and to a lack of microtopographic variation in the restored sites. Our results suggest that restoration projects should evaluate both structural and functional processes, since they may reveal tradeoffs among important goals. Mitigation efforts should strive to understand the mechanisms causing these tradeoffs among structure and function and try to minimize these in restoration designs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, topsoil-removal may also have deleterious effects on ecosystem function because it can increase soil bulk density and decrease organic matter and available nutrients, leading to lower cover and productivity of desirable plant species (Woodward 1996, Patzelt et al 2001, Tallowin and Smith 2001.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring wetland prairies: tradeoffs among native plant cover, community composition, and ecosystem functioning

et al. 2012

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“…High nutrient levels of the soil can favour weedy species after the cessation of the agricultural cultivation (Patzelt 1998;Eschen et al 2007), which can slow down the restoration, and/or decrease its success (Patzelt et al 2001;Hölzel and Otte 2003;Edwards et al 2007). Two methods are the most frequently used to decrease the amount of available soil nutrients in the upper soil layers: topsoil removal and carbon addition.…”

Section: Topsoil Removal and Carbon Additionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassland restoration on former croplands in Europe: an assessment of applicability of techniques and costs

et al. 2011

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Grasslands used to be vital landscape elements throughout Europe. Nowadays, the area of grasslands is dramatically reduced, especially in industrial countries. Grassland restoration is widely applied to increase the naturalness of the landscape and preserve biodiversity. We reviewed the most frequently used restoration techniques (spontaneous succession, sowing seed mixtures, transfer of plant material, topsoil removal and transfer) and techniques used to improve species richness (planting, grazing and mowing) to recover natural-like grasslands from ex-arable lands. We focus on the usefulness of methods in restoring biodiversity, their practical feasibility and costs. We conclude that the success of each technique depends on the site conditions, history, availability of propagules and/or donor sites, and on the budget and time available for restoration. Spontaneous succession can be an option for restoration when no rapid result is expected, and is likely to lead to the target in areas with high availability of propagules. Sowing low-diversity seed mixtures is recommended when we aim at to create basic grassland vegetation in large areas and/or in a short time. The compilation of high-diversity seed mixtures for large sites is rather difficult and expensive; thus, it may be applied rather on smaller areas. We recommend combining the two kinds of seed sowing methods by sowing low-diversity mixtures in a large area and high-diversity mixtures in small blocks to create species-rich source patches for the spontaneous colonization of nearby areas. When proper local hay sources are available, the restoration with plant material transfer can be a fast and effective method for restoration.

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“…Information on germination characteristics is also particularly relevant for habitat restoration, in which species-enrichment largely depends on re-establishment by artificially introduced or naturally dispersed seeds (e. g. Bakker & Berendse 1999;Patzelt et al 2001). By the creation of suitable regeneration niches at the right time of the year, management schemes may positively influence germination and the subsequent fate of seedlings (Olff et al 1994;Kotorová & Lepš 1999;Schütz 2000 b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological significance of seed germination characteristics in flood-meadow species

Hölzel

Otte

2004

Flora - Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants

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SummaryIn climate chamber and outdoor experiments we analysed germination traits of 42 vascular plant species typical of floodmeadows of the alliance Cnidion. In Central Europe such flood-meadows and their highly endangered character species are confined to large lowland river corridors with a dry and warm climate. Due to the prevailing ecological conditions, particularly the extremely high variability in soil moisture potential, it was hypothesised that flood-meadow species exhibit specific strategies in terms of germination phenology, temperature requirements and primary dormancy to avoid constraints on seedling recruitment imposed by flooding, drought and competition from established vegetation. Furthermore, we expected that germination characteristics could be a key for the causal understanding of range size, confinement to large river corridors, recent rarification processes, seed bank persistence and establishment success in restoration projects.PCA ordination of germination traits reflected a continuous gradient of increasing primary dormancy levels ranging from species with a high capacity for fast and almost complete germination over a wide range of temperatures to those with high and narrow temperature requirements and/or a delayed and asynchronous emergence. Many of the studied species germinated only at relatively high temperature in the year of shedding, but the primary conditional dormancy disappeared in most cases after a period of cold wet stratification. Requirements for chilling and/or high germination temperature were revealed to be the most common strategies for avoidance of harmful autumn and winter germination. The majority of the studied species tends to exploit particularly favourable regeneration niches in early spring. Surprisingly, many species with large long-term persistent soil seed banks exhibited relatively low dormancy levels in light; this was correlated with small seed size and a consequent higher probability of burial. We found no relationship between germination characteristics and river corridor confinement or Central European range size. However, there was a significant trend in endangered species towards higher temperature requirements and delayed, asynchronous germination. This is presumably disadvantageous under the environmental conditions of subcontinental flood-meadows.

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Restoration of Wet Fen Meadows by Topsoil Removal: Vegetation Development and Germination Biology of Fen Species

Cited by 107 publications

References 28 publications

Restoring wetland prairies: tradeoffs among native plant cover, community composition, and ecosystem functioning

Restoring wetland prairies: tradeoffs among native plant cover, community composition, and ecosystem functioning

Grassland restoration on former croplands in Europe: an assessment of applicability of techniques and costs

Ecological significance of seed germination characteristics in flood-meadow species

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