Effects of Mowing and Prescribed Fire on Plant Community Structure and Function in Rare Coastal Sandplains, Nantucket Island, MA, USA

Poulos, Helen M.; Freeman, Rachael S.; Karberg, Jennifer M.; Beattie, Karen C.; O'Dell, Danielle I.; Omand, Kelly A.

doi:10.1007/s00267-019-01233-z

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…However, these management strategies target only small areas of mountain, and they have not been effective in reducing coastal scrub cover that has increased in recent decades at the expense of grasslands. Additional restoration techniques that could increase the spread of native flowering species, and thus pollinator abundance, include tilling with seeding of native plants to increase native species richness and percent cover (Wheeler et al 2015), disc harrowing coastal scrub habitats with native seed additions (Omand et al 2018), and repeated mowing or prescribed fire to reduce scrub encroachment and increase herbaceous plants (Dunwiddie et al 1997;Poulos et al 2020). Mowing, prescribed fire, and tillage can have direct, short-term negative impacts on ground nesting wild pollinators, but applying management to only small portions of the habitat (less than a third) could provide refuge for pollinators (Black et al 2009).…”

Section: Conclusion and Management Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant–Pollinator Interactions in a Northern California Coastal Habitat, San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County, California, USA

Brooks,

Poulos

2023

Natural Areas Journal

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Animal pollination of plants is a crucial ecosystem service for maintaining global biodiversity and ecosystem function. High pollinator abundance and diversity can likewise improve the reproductive success of the plant community. Plant-pollinator interaction networks have the potential to identify dominant, specialist, and generalist pollinator species within a system, and their host plant counterparts. Understanding these relationships is paramount for buffering natural systems from biodiversity loss in a world where pollinator abundances continue to decline rapidly. San Bruno Mountain (SBM) in California, USA is one of the last natural, open spaces in the urban landscape of the northern San Francisco Peninsula. We conducted a series of timed meanders and vegetation surveys at eight sample sites within SBM (four grassland and four coastal scrub sites) to identify plant species prevalence and pollinator species visitation of flowering plants. We used nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), similarity percentage analysis, and bipartite networks to examine plant and pollinator species richness, community composition, and trophic interactions across the SBM landscape in grassland and coastal scrub habitats. We encountered a total of 59 pollinator and 135 plant species over the course of the study. While species richness did not vary significantly between vegetation types, the NMDS results revealed significant differences between grassland and coastal scrubland plant and pollinator community composition. The bipartite analyses identified generalist pollinators and plant host species as important contributors to the biodiversity of SBM due to the high numbers of interactions between these pollinator and plant taxa across the landscape. These results also highlight the conservation importance of specialist pollinators and their plant host plant taxa for maintaining high diversity and ecosystem integrity. In the future, adaptive restoration activities could be used at SBM and other similar open land habitats to bolster the abundance of native herbaceous flowering pollinator host plants in the area.

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Section: Conclusion and Management Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant–Pollinator Interactions in a Northern California Coastal Habitat, San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County, California, USA

Brooks,

Poulos

2023

Natural Areas Journal

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“…Habitat restoration that promotes the recruitment of forbs to the site could reverse the effects of shrub encroachment from fire exclusion in SBM in recent decades. Grassland cover has decreased over time at SBM, and in other similar coastal habitats in the absence of fire (Zavaleta and Kettley 2006, Knapp et al 2007, NPS 2007, Eviner 2016, Campell et al 2018, Poulos et al 2020. While forb cover and dominance was not significantly lower in coastal scrub cover at SBM, habitat homogenization through scrub encroachment in the absence of fire has resulted in declines in forb cover and abundance elsewhere (Anderson et al 2000, MacDougall andTurkington 2007).…”

Section: Species Richness and Pollinator Abundancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…While forb cover and dominance was not significantly lower in coastal scrub cover at SBM, habitat homogenization through scrub encroachment in the absence of fire has resulted in declines in forb cover and abundance elsewhere (Anderson et al 2000, MacDougall andTurkington 2007). Habitat heterogeneity, floral diversity, and the maintenance of grassland habitats may be important factors promoting pollinator diversity (Potts et al 2003, Ebeling et al 2008, Grundel et al 2010, Luong et al 2019; adaptive management activities including prescribed fire, mowing, disc harrowing, or tilling in conjunction with native seed additions of herbaceous species may maintain habitat heterogeneity at SBM into the future (Dunwiddie et al 1997, Moyes et al 2005, Wheeler et al 2015, Carlsen et al 2017, Omand et al 2018, Poulos et al 2020.…”

Section: Species Richness and Pollinator Abundancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plant-pollinator networks could help managers identify keystone species that are critical for maintaining habitat diversity and the ecosystem service that these networks provide. Additional restoration techniques that could increase the spread of native flowering species, and thus pollinator abundance, include: tilling with seeding of native plant to increase native species richness and percent cover (Wheeler et al 2015), disc harrowing coastal scrub habitats with native seed additions (Omand et al 2018), and repeated mowing or prescribed fire to reduce scrub encroachment and increase herbaceous plants (Dunwiddie et al 1997, Poulos et al 2020.…”

Section: Conclusion and Management Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A lack of disturbance from wildfires, which were common on the mountain before European colonization, has resulted in widespread scrub encroachment and a subsequent decline of grassland community cover in the absence of fire (from 793 hectares of grassland in 1932 to 478 in 2014) (Weiss et al 2015). Fire frequency is a well-known influence on the abundance and distribution of both woody and herbaceous vegetation in coastal habitats, where a lack of fire often results in shrub dominance at the expense of graminoid-dominated communities (Moyes et al 2005, Zavaleta and Kettley 2006, Knapp et al 2007, NPS 2007, Eviner 2016, Carlsen et al 2017, Poulos et al 2020. Disturbances can likewise affect pollinator community composition and dynamics through mortality, injury, or displacement (Black et al 2009, Campell et al 2018, Smith DiCarlo et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant-pollinator interactions across California grassland and coastal scrub vegetation types on San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County

Brooks¹

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Animal pollination of plants is a crucial ecosystem service for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function, worldwide. High pollinator abundance and diversity can likewise improve the reproductive success of the plant community. Plant-pollinator interaction networks have the potential to identify dominant, specialist, and generalist pollinator species within a system, and their host plant counterparts. Understanding these relationships is paramount for buffering natural systems from biodiversity loss in a world where pollinator abundance continues to decline rapidly. San Bruno Mountain (SBM) in San Mateo County, California, is one of the last natural, open spaces in the urban landscape in the northern San Francisco Peninsula. I conducted a series of timed meanders and vegetation surveys at eight sample sites within SBM (four grassland and four coastal scrub sites) to identify plant species prevalence and pollinator species visitation of flowering plants. I employed a multivariate approach for investigating plant and pollinator species richness, plant and pollinator community composition, and trophic-level interactions across the SBM landscape, and I evaluated differences in these relationships between grassland and coastal scrub habitats. A total of 59 pollinator species and 135 plant species were inventoried over the course of the study. While species richness did not vary significantly between vegetation types, the nonmetric multidimensional scaling results revealed significant differences in species composition and key indicator species between vegetation types. The bipartite analyses identified Bombus vosnesenskii, Eriophyllum stachaedifolium, Grindelia hirsutula and others as generalist pollinator and plant species that are 4 important for the long-term biodiversity conservation of SBM due to their interactions with a diverse array of other plant and pollinator taxa. In the future, adaptive restoration activities could be used at SBM and other similar habitats to bolster the abundance of herbaceous flowering plants for pollinators to conserve biodiversity and promote ecosystem health in a world that continues to experience declines in pollinator abundance.

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Woody plant encroachment into coastal grasslands: consequences for soil properties and plant diversity

et al. 2020

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Effects of Mowing and Prescribed Fire on Plant Community Structure and Function in Rare Coastal Sandplains, Nantucket Island, MA, USA

Cited by 5 publications

References 49 publications

Plant–Pollinator Interactions in a Northern California Coastal Habitat, San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County, California, USA

Plant–Pollinator Interactions in a Northern California Coastal Habitat, San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County, California, USA

Plant-pollinator interactions across California grassland and coastal scrub vegetation types on San Bruno Mountain, San Mateo County

Woody plant encroachment into coastal grasslands: consequences for soil properties and plant diversity

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