Tag Archives: resilience

The Show Must Go On

Posted on by
12

Almost a decade ago, I wrote about two competing metaphors for prairie restoration. I suggested we view prairie restoration like the reconstruction of a city after a disaster rather than like the restoration of an historic building.  We need to concentrate on the roles and functions of prairie ecosystems rather than how closely a restored patch of prairie resembled what it used to be in the past.

Today, I’m hoping to stimulate conversation about the difficult decisions we face as we try to conserve prairies in the face of rapid climate change.  One conservation planning approach is to focus on conserving the stage, not the actors.  It advocates prioritization of sites with geophysical diversity because those abiotic conditions influence habitat heterogeneity, which supports biodiversity.  The hope is that we might be able to conserve “an abiotically diverse ‘stage’ upon which evolution will play out and support many actors (biodiversity).”

The varied topography and the habitat size and connectivity found in Flint Hills of Kansas makes it a ‘stage’ that can potentially sustain biodiversity – but only with thoughtful, persistent, and adaptive management.

I think the ‘conserve the stage’ approach has merit, but it’s just a first step, especially for prairie conservation.  We don’t just want to save the stage; we want to make sure the show goes on.  Thus, I present to you a long (and potentially ridiculous) metaphor for prairie conservation that builds upon the ‘conserve the stage’ approach.

…

Every actor in a theatrical production plays a role that helps tell a story.  Likewise, every species in a prairie plays a role that contributes to the overall functioning of the ecosystem.  In a healthy and resilient prairie, all the key roles in are filled. 

Fortunately, there is a lot of redundancy built into prairie communities.  We have lots of species that provide pollination, seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, and all the other essential functions that keep prairies going.  We have a big cast, or maybe a big actors’ union.

Today’s prairie ‘show’ already looks different than it did in the past.  Prairie landscapes are fragmented, invasive species have joined the cast, and the climate is changing.  Those and other factors mean that some actors who played key roles in the past are no longer part of the show, at least at some venues.  Other actors remain in the cast but don’t play their roles as effectively as they used to.  Despite those changes, there are still really good versions of the prairie show being presented on various stages, though the versions vary quite a bit from place to place.

To keep the show going, we, as producers and directors, have to be creative and adaptable.  We face really difficult decisions, especially when it comes to actors who aren’t well suited for their roles anymore.  Continuing to direct the show with those actors as the main focus can weaken the performance of others and drag the whole production down. 

Making changes to the cast of a show comes with a lot of risk, however.  We don’t have a lot of experience with that process and we’re likely to make mistakes. Fortunately, in most cases, there are existing cast members that have the potential to adapt their roles and take on new challenges.  With some guidance, those actors will find new ways to collaborate with each other and put on a show that might not be exactly the same as we’re used to but will still have a plot we can follow and enjoy.

More frequent and severe flooding is occurring as a result of climate change. That increased flooding will likely affect which plant and animal species will persist in low-lying prairies like this one. Can we predict those changes and help guide them in ways that don’t lead to reduced biodiversity?

If more drastic actions are needed, we might recognize that some actors are on their way out and start training understudies who can gradually take over roles as needed.  If necessary, we might decide to recruit actors that are playing diminished roles on other stages and bring them in to rejuvenate their careers in a more suitable situation.  Similarly, we might help some of our own long-term stars find new opportunities elsewhere, rather than just watching them slowly fade away. 

In some cases, the world around us might force major a rewriting of the show itself.  We might find ourselves directing a shrubland or woodland production rather than a prairie show.  That doesn’t mean the show will stop or become less important, but it will require a different approach, a significantly altered cast, and a lot of adaptation by all involved.  However, if we stick with the mantra of ‘The Show Must Go On’, we’ll need to figure out how to adjust on the fly and sustain as much biodiversity and ecological function as we can.

…

Ok, I have to break away from this tedious metaphor.  The real point here is that we can’t afford to be so invested in current or past versions of our prairies that we don’t allow them to adapt to changing conditions.  At the risk of sliding back into my metaphor, there are lots of old movies and plays that don’t hold up well today.  Jokes that used to be funny 20 or 30 years ago aren’t funny today.  Old references don’t land with new audiences.  In most cases, the basic stories themselves are still solid – they just need to be adapted for today’s world.  Prairies and their species also exist in a different world than they used to, and that world continues to change (very quickly) around them.

The resilience and function of prairies is highly dependent upon biodiversity, which depends upon habitat size and heterogeneity, along with other factors.  Maintaining high biodiversity in prairies that exist in fragmented landscapes comes with huge challenges, which are compounded by a rapidly changing climate.  Plant and animal communities aren’t the same as they were in the past and they’ll continue to change over the next few decades and beyond.  In fragmented landscapes, unless we take an active role, those alterations will largely take place in isolation, with limited opportunities for species to travel between one prairie fragment and another.  Even in landscapes with large contiguous grasslands, we’ll need to be very thoughtful about how we shepherd those prairie communities through the coming years.

These tent caterpillars probably aren’t causing serious impacts to this patch of wild plum, despite appearances. How will climate change, habitat fragmentation, and increased woody encroachment affect this insect species and its impacts on other species in the future? (This is just a random example – I’m not saying tent caterpillars are going to become a major problem!)

It’s really hard to look at the prairies we know best and imagine them with a different composition of species.  We’re used to measuring stewardship success by our ability to sustain the status quo.  Watching the population of a species diminish in size – or disappear entirely – feels like a major failure.  Most of us have also looked skeptically at any new species that show up in a prairie, worrying about potential negative impacts of that species on the existing community. 

I don’t have a lot of answers to the big questions we face.  I’m certainly not ready to lay out a plan or advocate for a particular approach to managing these changing prairies.  As I did in another recent post, I’m mainly trying to get some conversation going on this topic. 

The best I can do right now is offer a few ideas for discussion.  For example, I think we might be smart to reevaluate the way we look at our objectives for prairie management.  Instead of trying to maintain the current composition of plants and animals, maybe we should focus more on biodiversity and less on which particular species are present or abundant within those communities.  (That doesn’t mean we welcome invasive species, by the way.  Any species – plant, animal, or otherwise – that acts to reduce biodiversity is still a problem.)  

I also think we need more serious conversation about when to resist ‘state changes’ like the transition from grassland to shrubland and when to facilitate those transformations, while trying to preserve as much biodiversity and productivity as we can.  Again, I have little to offer in terms of specifics, but it seems clear that we’re not going to be able to stave off those state changes forever in at least some places.  Let’s start thinking about contingencies instead of just waiting for those sites to collapse.

There’s a lot of woody encroachment in this prairie. The number of trees in the surrounding landscape and a changing climate are both spurring that invasion. At what point does the fight against this kind of encroachment become fruitless? What do we do then?

Finally, it’s never been more important to find opportunities to enlarge and reconnect prairie fragments through prairie restoration.  The chances are slim that a small, isolated prairie fragment is going to adapt well to a rapidly changing world.  Growing the size of those fragments by restoring adjacent patches should be a top priority.  Can we find new approaches for creating those restoration opportunities in strategic locations? As we do that restoration work, we should also continue to test and discuss seed sourcing strategies, including the regional admixture approach, to see if we can further bolster the adaptive capacity of those small sites.

We’ll be figuring this out as we go, and we’ll surely screw some things up, but we can’t afford to just continue reacting.  At the very least, we need to be thinking ahead about the changes that are taking place and how those will affect prairies.  In some cases, we should probably be ‘acting ahead’ to guide state transitions, migration of species, or simply changes in species composition within individual prairie sites. 

What we can’t afford to do is live in the past.  We’re hurtling into the future whether we like it or not.  Let’s make sure we bring prairies along with us.

Hubbard Fellowship Blog – Olivia Marvels at the Persistence of Plants

Posted on by
8

This post was written by Olivia Schouten, one of our Hubbard Fellows this year.  Olivia is an excellent scientist, with strong expertise in plants and plant communities, as you’ll be able to see from this post.  

As a biologist with broad interests, I can usually find something to love in all living things, but I’ll admit that plants have a special place in my heart. This is probably a good thing, since I’ve spent the majority of my education and professional life cultivating my knowledge of plants. I’ve found that they are often underappreciated and often overlooked, which is a shame, because plants are some of the most amazing organisms out there (in my humble opinion).

Plants, in most places, not only form the basis of the food chain, but also provide the structure of habitat. A forest with towering trees is very different than an open grassland or a sparsely vegetated desert, and the animals that live there respond accordingly. Plants are eaten, trampled underfoot, exposed to the whims of the weather, and just generally beaten down by the world around them, all on top of competing with each other for resources and space. But while plants have it rough, they are also really good at persisting.

Trees are an excellent example of just how persistent plants can be. I was reminded of this earlier in the summer when I came across a grove of cottonwoods in one of our Platte Prairies while searching for musk thistles. At first glance I thought one of the cottonwoods had recently fallen and the leaves hadn’t died back yet. On closer inspection, however, I realized that the tree had probably fallen years ago, and instead of dying, the parts of the trunk that now contacted the earth had sprouted roots and continued on living. Branches had grown up from the trunk,and now looked essentially like three trees, all connected by the same fallen trunk.

This cottonwood, in true tree fashion, just refused to die. Photo by Olivia Schouten

Trees are clearly hard to kill, as anyone who’s tried to cut down a deciduous tree in your yard knows. Once the tree is cut you have to treat the stump with herbicide, otherwise the still-living roots will simply sprout again. Nearly every tree we cut here on the Platte to keep our prairies open needs to be treated with an herbicide. While it would be nice to not have to use chemicals in our stewardship work like this, that resilience of trees can also be a blessing. After the wildfire at our Niobrara Valley Preserve a few years ago, much of the forest along the river was killed. However, the oaks along the slopes are re-sprouting from their roots, as only the tops of the trees had been killed in the blaze. Because of this, these forests have a jump start on regenerating after the devastation of the fire.

It’s probably a good thing musk thistles are so showy, otherwise it would be much more difficult to find them.  Photo by Olivia Schouten

Since I found that cottonwood looking for musk thistles, it’s probably worth talking about them and their own resilient strategies. As a biennial, these plants only have one chance to flower and produce seeds, so they produce thousands of them at a time. And they can fly. That’s not great for us, considering they are considered noxious weeds here in Nebraska, but as a strategy for this plant it certainly pays off.

But wait, there’s more! Even when uprooted or sprayed with herbicide, if the flowers on a musk thistle plant have been pollinated, they will still produce seeds! So when we control this plant, we not only cut off the root just under the ground and pull it out, we have to collect any flowers, or else nothing will actually have been controlled. This persistent ability of musk thistles makes things more difficult and time consuming for us to control, but you have to admit that it’s a cool adaptation, and in its native habitat, likely very useful.

We collected about three tubfuls of musk thistle flowers by the end of the control season. We let the flowers rot to make sure any seeds were destroyed before throwing them out.  Photo by Olivia Schouten

So far these examples relate back to land management, and how the difficulty in killing plants affects our ability to effectively manage invasive plants in prairies. But we rely on these same tenacious qualities in our native prairies species as well. Chris talks a lot about the resilience of prairies on this blog, and a lot of that depends on the persistent nature of individual plants.

Consider big bluestem, a favorite of both cattle and bison. It can be cropped down again and again to within an inch of the ground over a growing season, but while such trauma might kill another plant, big bluestem holds on until the herd moves on and it gets a break, coming back taller and stronger the next year, until it’s back to full strength within a few years. In addition, even in those years that it’s hammered by grazing, big bluestem will find a way to flower, since all that short and weak vegetation around them makes for a good place to put out seeds.

This patch of big bluestem has been hit pretty hard by cows this year, but that didn’t stop it from blooming.  Photo by Olivia Schouten

Other plants may just find that conditions in a certain year aren’t for them. Maybe it’s too dry, or too cold, or the grasses around them are just too tall. Perennial prairie plants don’t let that stop them, as many will simply take a break, growing very little above ground for a year, relying more on stores of energy in their roots than anything else. To some, it may seem like those plants have died and disappeared from a field. But just wait, when conditions become favorable, most of those plants will show up again, just as strong, and benefiting from that strategy of waiting it out through the hard times.

Now, just because plants are tough doesn’t mean they’re invincible. If put under too much stress even the most stubborn plant will eventually die. Knowing how plants are able to persist can help us more effectively target those plants we don’t want, but also help ensure that our desirable plants always have a chance to let their persistent nature shine!