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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2022
- Title: Understanding Plant Relationships and Communities: Creating a Framework for Supporting Native Plants in Relation to Multiflora Rose
- Author: Rachel Therese Carethers (Wellesley College)
- Abstract:
This multi-year project is meant to center Indigenous knowledges and to proceed in cultivating a continuous and reciprocal relationship between Nipmuc people and the Amplifying Indigenous Voices team at Harvard Forest for the benefit of Nipmuc people. We explore what it means to be in kinship with a contrived category of non-native plants – presently known as ‘invasive’ in the western science framework – in relation to plants significant to Nipmuc people. The perceived threats/values of invasive plants vary drastically between western and Indigenous groups. In management, ‘eradication’/‘control’ of invasive plants through the use of chemical controls is the most common practice, which is harmful to surrounding beings and the arability of land as chemicals persist. For our study, we created a pilot garden to observe community relationships between two native plants and the ‘invasive’ multiflora rose. Seedlings of the focal plants – state-listed herbaceous and woody perennials – were potted in soils occupied by multiflora rose: untreated vs. burned (in efforts to denature phytochemicals). We measured growth (height, foliage count, biomass). The final biomass will be measured from the harvested seedlings at the end of the pilot before the plants are returned to the nation. Thus far, plants in the untreated soil present an average foliage increase of 8.7%, and the burned soil 5.4%. These results can help inform how these plants can exist/be planted in relation to the widespread multiflora rose on Nipmuc land. The goal is to make culturally-significant species more abundant on traditional lands, inform land stewardship practices through Nipmuc knowledge and consensual collaboration, and to provide information applicable beyond this project.
- Research Category: Invasive Plants, Pests & Pathogens; Historical and Retrospective Studies; Group Projects
