Reintroducing Vascular and Non-Vascular Plants to Disturbed Arctic Sites: Investigating Turfs and Turf Fragments

Abstract

Disturbed low-Arctic environments provide many challenges for ecological restoration, from harsh climates and remote locations to limited knowledge on plant establishment and successional pathways within tundra ecosystems. Due to limited commercially available materials for restoration of native low-Arctic plant communities, transplantation may provide an effective technique for revegetation in these difficult-to-restore environments. In this study, whole-turfs and shredded turfs were harvested from undisturbed upland-heath tundra near Rankin Inlet, Canada, and transplanted onto nearby disturbed gravel quarries to investigate species survivability and development of upland-heath vegetative communities. Two years following transplantation, turfs were found to maintain 85% of the initial vegetative cover and 91% of the initial species richness, with expansion up to 8 cm into the surrounding substrate, and production of seeds and spores. Although shredded turfs were unable to significantly establish vascular species, evidence suggests a shredded turf may establish non-vascular plant cover over a larger area than intact turfs, if given greater protection from environmental stressors. Our results demonstrate that whole-turfs are resistant to harvesting and transplantation stresses, flooding, drought, and poor soil conditions, and are an effective means of species transfer promoting development of vegetative cover on disturbed substrates. High species survivability indicates that turfs have the potential to provide disturbed areas with a wide array of native species, critical for the development of sustainable and self-organizing assemblages of native vegetation.