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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2015
- Title: Biodiversity Conservation on Agricultural Land: Petersham Country Club
- Primary Author: Martha Hoopes (Mount Holyoke College)
- Additional Authors: Glenn Motzkin (University of Massachusetts - Amherst )
- Abstract:
Open meadows and grasslands are rare habitats in New England and often contain associated rare or threatened species. Natural successional processes move many such habitats toward dominance by woody species. In order to maintain open habitats dominated by herbaceous species, it is often necessary to apply management. The recently acquired former Petersham Country Club site is an excellent place to explore alternatives for maintaining conservation value and grassland biodiversity under a range of agricultural or grazing approaches. In order to establish a baseline to assess the effects of these approaches, Glenn Motzkin and I set up and surveyed 27 permanent 10m x 10m plots with twelve plots on former fairways, nine plots on former greens, and six plots in embedded brushy habitats. We positioned plots so that we put four fairway plots, three greens plots, and three brushy plots in each of the three management areas (traditional grazing, rotational or intensive grazing, and hayfield). We sampled all plots in mid- to late-summer 2014, before the application of grazing and mowing treatments. Glenn Motzkin provided the expertise for plant identification and identified 168 species in the permanent plots. Most of these species were found in the brushy plots, which had much higher species richness (mean = 54, range: 46-71) than the plots on fairways (mean = 11.08, range: 6-31) or greens (mean = 11.6, range: 8-16). Greens and faiways were also distinguished by very different dominant species, with strong dominance by Erigeron canadensis on the greens. Several invasive species were also found in the brushy habitats. Future work will examine the movement of these invasive species from brushy areas into the meadow habitats.
- Research Category: Biodiversity Studies
Conservation and Management
