{"id":51528,"date":"2018-05-29T11:18:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T18:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=51528"},"modified":"2018-06-07T09:57:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T16:57:41","slug":"land-restoration-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/land-restoration-study\/","title":{"rendered":"NAU ecologists receive $935K USDA grant for major land restoration study"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kerry Bennett <\/strong>and Julie Hammonds<\/strong>
\nOffice of the Vice President for Research<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Not long ago, Kevin Grady<\/strong>, assistant research professor of forestry at Northern Arizona University, was involved in the emergency response to a 30,000-acre wildfire. Land managers he worked with wanted to jump-start restoration immediately. Grady figured covering that many acres with plants would require 90 semi-trailer trucks full of seeds\u2014seeds that weren\u2019t easy to find. He asked himself, \u201cWhat can we learn and share so land managers can do a better job of restoration?\u201d<\/p>\n

As climate change brings more severe, more frequent wildfires and droughts throughout the western United States, land managers are increasingly challenged to find the best restoration approaches\u2014and the right kinds of seeds to plant for successful outcomes. At the same time, pollinators such as bees, birds and butterflies are in decline, which poses a major threat to both conservation and agriculture.<\/p>\n

A cross-disciplinary team of NAU ecologists recently received a five-year, $935,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study which plants are most fit for restoring damaged lands and capable of supporting diverse pollinator communities.<\/p>\n

Study to identify foundation species for crisis events and large-scale restoration<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Grady\u2014along with Clare Aslan<\/strong>, assistant professor of earth sciences and environmental sustainability, and Karen Haubensak<\/strong>, assistant research professor of biology\u2014launched the ambitious project, which is designed to identify the foundation species best suited for seed production for crisis events as well as for large-scale restoration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a critical need to restore plants and pollinators that are essential for promoting diversity and ecosystem services important to human communities,\u201d said Grady, the project\u2019s principal investigator.<\/p>\n

The scientists will test nearly 50,000 plants of 12 species\u2014the largest trial of its kind in the western region. Based on the outcome of the test, they will conduct a trial of 105,000 plants at established small farms to identify growing conditions that optimize seed production.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to know which plants support diverse pollinators, produce lots of seeds and perform best in large-scale restoration projects,\u201d Haubensak said.<\/p>\n

The goal is to use the right plants in the right combinations, while bolstering native seed production throughout the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaintaining and restoring functionally diverse pollinator communities, using a seed supply that is abundant and well-suited to current and future conditions, is essential to the long-term success of restoration investments,\u201d Aslan said.<\/p>\n

Testing climate factors on plant performance <\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhen land managers restore an area after a fire, there\u2019s typically not enough native seed on hand,\u201d Grady said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting seed from all over, and it\u2019s generally 60 percent exotic rather than native.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, because land managers typically don\u2019t consider how well the plants will be doing in 25 or 50 years, these restorations could fail in the long term because they don\u2019t take climate change into account.<\/p>\n

This study will use a technique called a provenance trial, which is a test of how climate factors affect plant performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cA provenance trial involves taking seeds from varied locations, or provenances, and putting them in a common garden to test environmental versus genetic effects on plant-insect interactions and plant performance,\u201d Grady said.<\/p>\n

The trial will use common gardens in Flagstaff and Cottonwood; Moab, Utah; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to test the 12 species. The four locations create a climate gradient, generating a range of data to support more effective, species-specific seed zone guidelines.<\/p>\n

Focus on plant-pollinator relationships critical to project<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The emphasis on pollinators is a critical aspect of this project. Fires and climate change can directly impact bees and other insect pollinators or reduce their forage plants, decreasing the overall nectar supply across broad landscapes. Aslan, a pollinator expert, will focus on plant-pollinator relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at how well these plants form pollination relationships will help us decide whether to recommend them as restoration species,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Grady\u2019s research focuses on several key themes, including assisted migration, facilitation, carbon cycling, biodiversity, pollination, co-evolution, exotics and climate change. Aslan, associate director of the Landscape Conservation Initiative<\/a>, is interested in the ecology and conservation of species interactions and how dynamics at the interaction level can scale up to the full community level. Haubensak is with the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society<\/a>. She\u00a0examines interactions and feedbacks among soils and plants to understand how terrestrial ecosystems respond to stressors like climate change and invasive species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kerry Bennett and Julie Hammonds Office of the Vice President for Research Not long ago, Kevin Grady, assistant research professor of forestry at Northern Arizona University, was involved in the emergency response to a 30,000-acre wildfire. Land managers he worked with wanted to jump-start restoration immediately. Grady figured covering that many acres with plants…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":51529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}