Explaining restoration failure can be as important as touting success. We used a series of studies to understand the failure of techniques commonly used to restore wetland prairies in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. Burning, fallowing, and solarization (covering tilled plots with plastic sheeting to heat the soil) had...
We sought to determine 1) the relationship between seedling
establishment rates of target native prairie species and field
levels of three soil nutrients (phosphate, nitrate, and ammonium)
recorded in fall, winter, and summer, 2) the effect of fire on
these three nutrients, and 3) the overall effect of fire on...
One goal of this environmental education curriculum is that students will gain an appreciation of Willamette Valley wetland prairies, a threatened ecosystem, and will gain an understanding of the importance of protecting these wetlands. A second goal is that students will see first-hand the processes involved in conducting scientific field...
Willamette Valley wetland prairies are some of the most endangered ecosystems in the United States, and provide habitat for many federally listed species (Wilson et al. 1993, Noss et al. 1995, USFWS 2000, Schultz et al. 2003). A rigorous program of ecosystem restoration can protect and enhance wetland plants, animals,...
Knowledge of post-dispersal seed fates and other regeneration characteristics is
crucial for predicting abundances and distributions of populations and, ultimately,
community species composition and diversity. Seed fate studies, however, are rare
primarily due to the difficulty of determining seed fates and causes of mortality.
This thesis investigated post-dispersal seed fates...
Our project goal is to protect and restore rare Willamette Valley upland prairie habitat at Butterfly Meadows (Benton County) from invasion by the noxious weed Brachypodium sylvaticum (false brome). Native prairies, which once dominated the landscape of the Willamette Valley, are considered among the rarest of Oregon’s ecosystems and are...
Our project goal is to protect and restore rare Willamette Valley upland prairie habitat at Butterfly Meadows (Benton County) from invasion by the noxious weed Brachypodium sylvaticum (false brome). Native prairies, which once dominated the landscape of the Willamette Valley, are considered among the rarest of Oregon’s ecosystems and are...
Erigeron decumbens var. decumbens, the Willamette daisy, is known only from the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Herbarium records, from the 1800's until 1934, indicate that the Willamette daisy was once common and widely distributed throughout the Willamette Valley (Clark et al. 1993). However, between 1934 and 1980, this taxon was...
Seed size, abundance, viability, dormancy, and germination requirements strongly influence plant establishment and therefore are important considerations in restoration of native vegetation. These characteristics provide criteria for selection of suitable species, development of collection and pretreatment methods, and determination of seeding densities. The first set of objectives of this study...
Question: Most results of restoration efforts are species-specific and/or site-specific and therefore are not general enough to be easily applied to other species and other sites. Our research addresses the issue of species-specific results by investigating the feasibility of using plant traits instead of taxonomic species to characterize species responses...