CRB: Biodiversity in Experimental Prairie Restorations

我打算如何发现，当农业用地转变为原生高草植被时，食种子的鸟类、啮齿动物和食叶哺乳动物是否会影响植物多样性和群落组成。 鸟类和哺乳动物根据大小选择种子，大多数食草哺乳动物根据大小选择种子，大多数食草哺乳动物更喜欢吃某些植物物种的叶子。 然而，目前尚不清楚在实验室中明显的偏好是否真的改变了高草草原群落的组成和多样性，无论是在保存的残余物中还是在通过恢复创造的合成组合中。 了解这些基本过程，如种子库枯竭和密集的哺乳动物食草动物将有助于土地开垦，草原恢复和保护数百种本地物种，这些物种现在占据外围的旧田或林地栖息地，或越来越孤立的草原遗迹（在适合集约农业的肥沃土壤上，占欧洲前面积的1%）。 威斯康星州西南部的一个围封实验将确定在建立草原草和杂类草的复制群落期间，脊椎动物的消费者选择是否调节植物组成。 我将在已经准备了两年的休耕农田上播种45种代表性物种。 不同级别的脊椎动物访问（没有访问，鸟类访问，啮齿动物访问，包括鹿的总访问）应产生不同的物种组成的复制样地，最初收到相同数量的种子组成。 蟋蟀和田鼠啮齿类动物应抑制大种子物种（3.0毫克/种子），麻雀应抑制中等大小种子的物种（0.3-2.0毫克/种子），而种子小到脊椎动物感兴趣的植物种群（0.2毫克/种子）应在存在granviores时最多样化和丰富。 由于所有脊椎动物都不存在，大种子物种应该不成比例地丰富。 啮齿动物和鹿出现后的访问应该有利于草，因为选择性食草动物对杂类草。 值得注意的是，觅食的偏好被认为是不言自明的觅食生态学的种子选择和草食动物通常是未经测试的高草草原社区，因此不能应用于保护或恢复丰富的植物群。 最近的经验表明，当修复作为一门科学来做时，它是非常有启发性的。 这项研究将增加联邦、州和地方政府、私人利益和环保组织所需的科学理解，这些组织越来越致力于“从头开始恢复”在肥沃的农业土壤上消失的稀有物种组合。

Howe I propose to discover whether seed-eating birds and rodents and foliage-eating mammals influence plant diversity and community composition as agricultural land is converted to native tallgrass vegetation. Birds and mammals select seeds by size, and most herbivorous mammals select seeds by size, and most herbivorous mammals prefer to eat foliage of some plant species over others. However it is not known whether preferences evident in the lab actually alter composition and diversity of tallgrass prairie communities, either in conserved remnants or in synthetic assemblages created by restoration. Understanding such basic processes as seedbank depletion and intensive mammalian herbivore will aid in land reclamation, prairie restoration, and conservation of hundreds of native species which now occupy peripheral oldfield or woodland habitats, or increasingly isolated prairie remnants now (( 1% of pre-European extent on rich soils suitable for intensive agriculture. An exclosure experiment in southwestern Wisconsin will determine whether consumer choices by vertebrates regulate vegetative composition during establishment of replicated restorations of prairie grass and forbs. I will seed 45 representative species of fallow agricultural land that has been prepared for two years. Different levels of vertebrate access (no access, bird access, rodent access, total access including deer) should produce different species composition in replicated plots that initially receive the same number an composition of seeds. Cricetid and microtine rodents should depress large-seeded species (( 3.0 mg/seed), sparrows should depress species with seeds of intermediate size (0.3-2.0 mg/seed), while populations of plants with seeds to small to be of interest to vertebrates (( 0.2 mg/seed) should be most diverse and abundant when granviores are present. With all vertebrates absent, large-seeded species should be disproportionately abundant. Rodent and deer access after emergence should favor grasses because of selective herbivore on forbs. It is remarkable that foraging preferences considered axiomatic in foraging ecology of seed selection and herbivore are generally untested in tallgrass prairie communities, and therefore cannot be applied to conserving or restoring a rich flora. Recent experience has shown that when restoration is done as a science, it is very revealing. This study will augment scientific understanding needed by federal, state, and local governments, private interests, and environmental groups that show an increasing commitment to "restoration from scratch" of species assemblages that are vanishingly rare on rich agricultural soils.