crossings disturbed by OHV use in wet and riparian areas: planting cuttings as a restoration method
Blue Rapids Provincial Recreation Area (BRPRA) has an important role in the conservation of its unique natural heritage and biodiversity, but has also supported recreational activities for decades. Now an enhancement project is focusing on recovering some former off-highway vehicles (OHV) trail crossings located in wet and riparian areas in the Park. My project focuses on the restoration component of this initiative through revegetation of 15 enhanced trail crossings, including exploring how vegetation of degraded and edge areas compares with undisturbed areas and an investigation of different balsam poplar and willow spp. planting treatments to identify the most effective at restoring native future canopy vegetation. The goal of this study is to restore the degraded areas so that they are on the trajectory of having similar structure and function to the surrounding area.
The project was divided into two components: planting and vegetation survey. The planting method used was revegetation through live-staking (i.e. use of cuttings). The cuttings were collected in BRPRA, prepared according to specific treatments and planted in the experimental plots. To research the vegetation and soil cover, transects were placed in wet and dry areas within the crossings, each transect had a plot in the disturbed, edge and undisturbed areas. |
The most successful planting treatment for the 2017 growing season results was Un-rooted (15 cm mean growth) and the second was Green (6 cm mean growth). The Green treatment has fewer costs associated with its implementation, but the gain in growth with the use of the Un-rooted treatment is more than 50% bigger if compared with the Green treatment.
Initial diameter interfered in cutting growth for the Rooted (p-value: 0.0001338) and Un-rooted (p-value: 1.45e-07) treatments, but compaction did not have an influence on growth. That could reinforce the use of cuttings as a restoration method on compacted areas. The vegetation survey showed higher diversity and richness in the edge areas. The relationship between compositions in the different levels of disturbance was significant for diversity of all plants (p=0.02199), forbs (p= 0.003421) and grasses (p=0.002132). The results indicate that the Green and Un-rooted treatments can be used in balsam poplar cuttings to hold a restoration program in wet and riparian areas. The Green method can be used when the restoration project has a low budget and the Un-rooted method can be used when there is a need of faster results. The vegetation survey can indicate how planting affects biodiversity and composition in the restoration targets. |