As our understanding of the importance of natural lakeshores in providing wildlife habitat and water quality protection has grown, so too has interest in restoring degraded lakeshore. Advances in lakeshore restoration practice have been hindered by a lack of field-based evaluations to guide decisionmaking and by gaps in our knowledge of how to revegetate littoral and shoreline areas. To understand how the choices practitioners are making affect restoration outcomes, we surveyed 22 lakeshore restoration projects in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota (USA), metropolitan area that ranged in age from 1 to 6 years. We conducted comprehensive, floristic surveys of the vegetation found on each site and investigated site maintenance practices. We found that 29% of species planted in the upland zone of the lakeshore reliably established; long-term protection of the site from adjacent land uses improved the likelihood that planted vegetation would endure. The greatest revegetation failure occurred along the shoreline; 44% of species planted did not establish at this land-water transitional zone. Approximately 30% of the aquatic zone restorations did not contain any planted vegetation, although ten aquatic plant species were found to establish dependably on at least some of the remaining sites. In aquatic and transition zones, vegetative composition was most clearly related to exposure to wave activity. This survey suggests two restoration practices that should be improved to increase the likelihood of lakeshore restoration success: 1) choosing plants so they match the prevailing light and flooding conditions within sites; and 2) providing both upland and aquatic protection.
Despite their central role in lakeshore restoration, most littoral wetland plantings fail. The reasons for these failures are poorly understood, in part due to limited information on the effects of planting time, water depth, and propagation on the survival of emergent macrophyte plantings. We planted pots and prevegetated mats of softstem bulrush (Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani (C.C. Gmel.) Palla) at two different water depths (0-30 and 31-60 cm) in five lakes each month between May and September 2006 to evaluate the effects of planting month, water depth, and transplant type on the survival of planted S. tabernaemontani. Overall survival decreased from 73% at 30 days after planting to 40% pre-winter to 15% post-winter. The timing of planting was the most important factor influencing bulrush survival. Survival of bulrush planted later in the growing season is poor, regardless of the transplant type used, and should be avoided. During the optimal planting season of early-to-mid summer, transplants from pots are more likely to outperform mats, despite lower pre-planting biomass. Water depth is only important immediately after planting, after which time, its influence on successful establishment diminishes. Overall, our research indicated that key choices made by the practitioner can improve the likelihood that transplants establish in littoral wetland restorations.
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