Seeding in North American deserts has been cited to be “successful” in only 1 year in 10. However……

Fall 2005 Spring 2006

Fall 2005 Spring 2006

Artificial desert varnish – restore soil color

Anti-fertilizer – a soil amendment designed to reduce soil nutrient availability. A good example is adding carbon as wood chips. Carbon frequently limits microbial activity, so adding carbon results in many nutrients being tied up in microbial biomass and hence unavailable to plants. Exotic species frequently excel in environments of high nutrients. An idea behind ant-fertilizer is to reduce soil nutrients, potentially giving a competitive advantage to natives. (can search Restoration Ecology for some examples, by searching for carbon addition and so forth). A problem with the above reasoning is that lowering nutrients may also harm native species.

Wallace et al The challenge of a desert: revegetation of disturbed desert lands. Great Basin Naturalilst Memoirs 4:  Principles developed largely from 1960s-70s work revegetating Nevada Test Site  Water clearly critical, but timing and amount per rainfall event just as (or more) important than total quantity  May need to manipulate water, sometimes via catchments and terrain manipulation  Episodic nature of perennial plant recruitment and replenishment of annual plant seed bank  Fertile island structure – concentrated resources, establishment microsites  Some pioneer plants can establish in interspaces

Wallace et al The challenge of a desert: revegetation of disturbed desert lands. Great Basin Naturalilst Memoirs 4:  Animals control survival and growth of many species of plants (jackrabbits, pocket gophers, burros, etc.)  While water clearly often limiting, do not forget about soil nutrients, particularly nitrogen  Must tailor restoration to disturbance type

This has been the briefest of introductions to desert restoration. However, we will continue to touch on topics important to desert restoration during the remainder of the class – soil restoration, seed banks, landscape ecosystem perspective, human dimensions, and practical constraints, as well as in the virtual tour of Red Rock.

Project Description This project is worth 150 points (15% of grade), and constitutes the final exam for the course. It is designed to result in you synthesizing what you have learned, and applying it to a real-world situation right in our backyard. There will be 12 groups, each with 1 graduate student and 2 undergraduate students. I will provide class time for groups to be selected. You may choose your own groups, but if there are problems, I will select groups. Notify me immediately of any problems within groups. Your group will be responsible for a group presentation using ppt for the final exam. However, each individual will turn in a 500-word maximum (about 1 single spaced page) summary of their particular aspect of the project. Aspects of projects can include, but are not limited to, one group member handling reference conditions, another treatments, and so on. You will be graded individually on what you say during the presentation (50 points) and on your written summary (100 points)! If a group member does not participate, simply proceed with your project accomodating this lack of information! You will not be penalized!

Project Description Group presentations should be 10 minutes, with 2 minutes for questions. Due to some conflicts students have already approached me with, I will ask 3 groups to present early Wednesday May 2. You will have 2 in-class periods to coordinate the group presentation – April 30 and half of May 2’s class. There are several ways you can go about designing the restoration plan – there is not necessarily one correct answer – you will be graded on the application of restoration principles to your particular topic, their defensibility and feasibility as determined by your supporting reasoning, methodology for meeting your objectives, and staying within your set budget, material which should be covered in the in-class ppt and in your written summaries.

Project Description – specific instructions Your budget is $1 million. You can choose to restore either 100 acres or 1000 acres. At a minimum, projects must include some determination of reference conditions, some treatments to be implemented, and some means of monitoring effectiveness. Public education, incorporation of volunteers, etc. are not required, but may be helpful. Phytolith analyses cost $100/reference species and $225/soil sample. A graduate student research project to obtain research-grade phytolith information and pre-fire shrub densities costs $200,000 total. Note there are other ways to get this information, but it must be budgeted in. The group graduate representative must see me for one of four randomly assigned constraints to your projects. These must be dealt with or accommodated in your plans. You should feel free to ask me for things like rough cost estimates for certain things (that would be difficult for you to find yourselves).

Just examples of concepts, Note can Joshua tree/creosote etc. before-fire locations can be reconstructed, and how would you do this? Fertile island structure – since largely destroyed, should you, or can you, manipulate it? There are some natives that do seem to be able to establish – bladderpod, globemallow, snakeweed, and some others. Note some creosote resprout, some don’t. High visitation use at Red Rock. Is restoration successful if it does not at least attempt to break the exotic grass-fire cycle?

Resources of Potential Interest Background on Red Rock Canyon Nat. Conservation Area in Wikipedia Encyclopedia -- n_Area USDA Plants Database -- US Forest Service Fire Effects Information System -- Google Scholar &oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=ws&q= Native Plants Journal, for articles on plant prices, including the article on practical constraints listed on syllabus -- **Don’t forget about what we’ve covered in class, and other class resources such as the Beginner’s Guide to Desert Restoration! We also will be continuing to cover topics that may be useful, such as soil seed banks and exotic species management, during the remainder of the class!

Examples of native seeds and prices: Utah’s Choice: Native Plants for Intermountain Landscapes -- Plants of the Southwest -- You may also need to search online for potential bulk sources, as well as recommended seeding rates (there is little research to go on and really no readily accepted or known rates, so will be rough estimates to move forward if you choose this as an option).

Other fire articles, can download some off UNLV library. It is not essential to include articles like this in your projects – just putting them here for ideas if you choose to use them. Adams, S., B.R. Strain, and M.S. Adams Water-repellent soils, fire, and annual plant cover in a desert scrub community of southeastern California. Ecology 51: Brown, D.E., and R.A. Minnich Fire and changes in creosote bush scrub of the western Sonoran Desert, California. American Midland Naturalist 116: McLaughlin, S.P., and J.E. Bowers Effects of wildfire on a Sonoran Deset plant community. Ecology 63: Lei, S.A Postfire seed bank and soil conditions in a blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima Torr.) shrubland. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 100:100- (not available online I don’t think) O’Leary, J.F., and R.A. Minnich Postfire recovery of the creosote bush scrub vegetation in the western Colorado desert. Madrono 28: (not available online I don’t think) Google Matthew L. Brooks – he has written several Mojave fire articles.