Linking Landscapes to Wetland Condition: A Case Study of Eight Headwater Complexes in Pennsylvania

Fine‐scale spatial homogenization of microbial habitats: a multivariate index of headwater wetland complex condition

“…Further, our impacted headwater wetlands complexes have been shown to have higher herbaceous cover with an increase in non-native species compared to our reference standard complexes (Moon and Wardrop 2013). This could further homogenize impacted wetland soils through a loss of "islands of fertility" (Schlesinger et al 1996).…”

“…Others have highlighted the need to expand spatial studies in the temporal dimension (Ehrenfeld et al 1997, Guo et al 2002, Turner 2005. We selected soil properties that were known to be temporally robust on annual scales (Moon and Wardrop 2013) and assumed to be robust for the timescales of current wetland condition assessments (e.g., USEPA NWCA protocol, every 5 yr; and PSU Riparia protocol, every 10 yr). However, in the future, the use of remote sensing data that can be related to wetland properties might be a fruitful avenue for spatial and temporal monitoring.…”

“…Given that wetlands are energetically linked (e.g., lateral flow of water, sediments, and chemical constituents) to the larger landscapes and waterscapes that surround them, wetland ecologists have correlated measures of human activity in adjacent landscapes (e.g., road density, land use intensity, and buffer width) to changes in wetland hydrological regimes (Adamus et al. , Ryan ), soil conditions (Moon and Wardrop , Karstens et al. , Fennessy et al.…”

“…As the public has become more aware of the importance of these systems, wetland managers and scientists have turned their attention toward promoting legislative wetland protections (e.g., legislative measures from the Ramsar Convention) and building inventories that describe the ecological condition of the wetlands that remain, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) database and The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) Riparia database (available online). 6,7 Given that wetlands are energetically linked (e.g., lateral flow of water, sediments, and chemical constituents) to the larger landscapes and waterscapes that surround them, wetland ecologists have correlated measures of human activity in adjacent landscapes (e.g., road density, land use intensity, and buffer width) to changes in wetland hydrological regimes (Adamus et al 2001, Ryan 2005, soil conditions (Moon and Wardrop 2013, Karstens et al 2016, Fennessy et al 2018, vegetation composition , and diversity (Houlahan et al 2006), macroinvertebrate composition (Laubscher 2005), and amphibian species richness, abundance, and composition (Houlahan and Findlay 2004). From this Manuscript received 19 February 2018;revised 11 July 2018;accepted 5 September 2018.…”

Land-use and land-cover effects on soil microbial community abundance and composition in headwater riparian wetlands

“…Although linkages between wetland microbial communities and landscape context, particularly landscape composition, are not well understood, shifts in other on-site properties have been well documented in headwater riparian wetlands and related to changes in landscape composition. For example, in the Ridge and Valley region of central Pennsylvania headwater riparian wetlands with surrounding landscapes dominated by agricultural and urban LULC categories have greater percentages of herbaceous cover and a predominance of invasive and generalist species, compared to wetlands in landscapes dominated by forest (Miller and Wardrop, 2006;Moon and Wardrop, 2013). Hydrologic disconnections between streams and adjacent wetlands have also occurred (Adamus et al, 2001;Ryan, 2005), leading to changes in the frequency and intensity of inundation (Moon and Wardrop, 2013;Wardrop et al, In Press) and the delivery of sediment.…”