Trampling Impacts on Thermotolerant Vegetation of Geothermal Areas in New Zealand

Abstract

Geothermal features such as geysers, mud pools, sinter terraces, fumaroles, hot springs, and steaming ground are natural attractions often visited by tourists. Visitation rates for such areas in the Taupo Volcanic Zone of New Zealand are in the order of hundreds of thousands annually. These areas are also habitat for rare and specialized plant and microbial communities that live in the steam-heated soils of unusual chemical composition. We evaluated historical and current trampling impacts of tourists on the thermotolerant vegetation of the Waimangu and Waiotapu geothermal areas near Rotorua, and compared the results to experimental trampling at a third site (Taheke) not used by tourists. Historical tourism has removed vegetation and soil from around key features, and remaining subsoil is compacted into an impervious pavement on which vegetation recolonization is unlikely in the short term. Social tracks made by tourists were present at both tourist sites often leading them onto hotter soils than constructed tracks. Vegetation height and cover were lower on and adjacent to social tracks than further from them. Thermotolerant vegetation showed extremely low resistance to experimental trampling. This confirms and extends previous research that also shows that thallophytes and woody shrubs, life forms that dominate in thermotolerant vegetation, are vulnerable to trampling damage. Preservation of these vulnerable ecosystems must ensure that tourist traffic is confined to existing tracks or boardwalks, and active restoration of impacted sites may be warranted.

Sustained impacts of a hiking trail on changing Windswept Feldmark vegetation in the Australian Alps

“…Trails are one of the most common types of infrastructure provided for, and created by visitors in natural areas and trail-based activities such as hiking are among the most popular (Leung and Marion 1999;Hill and Pickering 2006;Wimpey and Marion 2011). In response, much of the research in recreation ecology has assessed the impacts of trails on vegetation and soils (Liddle 1997;Cole 2004;Monz et al 2010;Burns et al, 2013;Queiroz et al, 2014) including in Australia (Sun and Liddle, 1993;Scott and Kirkpatrick, 1994;Phillips and Newsome, 2002;Whinam and Chilcott, 2003;Mende and Newsome, 2006;Pickering and Hill 2007;Hill and Pickering, 2009).…”

Vegetation dynamics at two mud volcanoes of Sakhalin Island (Russia): comparison of chronosequences

“…Nevertheless, the specific local conditions of the mud fields are an abiotic filter and not all species from the surrounding communities can overcome it. The anthropogenic im pact on such habitats is a se rious factor in changes in their vegetation cover and how the species pools form, in connection with natural factors (Clarkson & Clark son 1983, Burns et al 2013.…”

The impacts of trail infrastructure on vegetation and soils: Current literature and future directions

“…Unlike research on use-related impacts where there are increasing numbers of comparative studies (Talbot et al, 2003;Hill and Pickering, 2009;Pickering and Growcock, 2009;Törn et al, 2009;Pickering et al, 2011;Burns et al, 2013), authors such as Godefroid and Koedam (2004), Hill and Pickering (2006) and Müllerová et al (2011) are among the few to specifically compare impacts among different types of trails, including between formal and informal trails. The scale and intensity of impacts can vary among trail types.…”

“…There is over 50 years of research on recreational trails documenting an array of impacts on vegetation, soils, animals and water (Wall and Wright, 1977;Liddle, 1997;Hammitt and Cole, 1998;Monz et al, 2009). Numerous observational and experimental studies have assessed use-related impacts of common recreational trail-based activities such as hiking, including comparisons among different activities (Rickard et al, 1994;Wilson and Seney, 1994;Deluca et al, 1998;Törn et al, 2009;Pickering et al, 2011), different intensities of use (Young and Gilmore, 1976;Cole and Bayfield, 1993;Kutiel et al, 2000;Lemauviel and Rozé, 2003;Talbot et al, 2003;Hill and Pickering, 2009;Pickering and Growcock, 2009;Burns et al, 2013), different ecosystems including rating their tolerance to disturbance (Rickard et al, 1994;Pickering and Hill, 2007;Bernhardt-Römermann et al, 2011) and different temporal scales and recovery periods (Bayfield, 1979;Whinam et al, 2003;Scherrer and Pickering, 2006;Growcock and Pickering, 2011). Recent reviews have synthesised many of these results demonstrating how the type, intensity, location, timing and behaviour of people undertaking these activities affects the scale and severity of impacts (Cole, 2004;Monz et al, 2009;Pickering, 2010;Pescott and Stewart, 2014).…”