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Continuous Hydrologic and Water Quality Monitoring of Vernal Ponds
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Vegetation changes over time in Prairie Pothole Region reference wetlands.
Christina L M Hargiss1, Savannah Fritz Metz2, Edward S DeKeyser2
1School of Natural Resource Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 58105, USA. Christina.Hargiss@ndsu.edu.
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
|June 16, 2023
Summary
Wetland vegetation in the Prairie Pothole Region is shifting away from native species towards non-native ones. This change challenges the assumption of stable reference wetlands and impacts future ecological assessments.
Area of Science:
- Wetland ecology
- Plant community dynamics
- Conservation biology
Background:
- Periodic assessments are crucial for understanding changes in reference condition wetlands.
- Such long-term monitoring is infrequently performed, creating data gaps.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare historical (1998-2004) and recent (2016) vegetation assessments in Missouri Coteau reference wetlands.
- To evaluate changes in plant community composition and ecological indicators over time.
Main Methods:
- Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) for vegetation community analysis.
- Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) to test for significant differences.
- Comparison of average coefficient of conservatism (COV) and floristic quality index (FQI) values.
Main Results:
- 2016 vegetation communities showed a significant trend away from native conservative species abundance compared to 1998-2004.
- Plant communities in 2016 exhibited lower abundance of native conservative species and higher abundance of non-native species.
- Both COV and FQI values significantly declined, indicating a shift towards lower-quality plant communities.
Conclusions:
- Reference wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region are not static and are undergoing significant vegetation shifts.
- The assumption of stable reference wetland conditions over time is challenged.
- Future wetland assessments must account for changing vegetation composition and its impact on reference condition benchmarks.
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