| Abstract Detail
Ecological Section Soranno, Matthew [1], Post, Jillian [2], Martine, Christopher T. [3], Adams, Kenneth A. [4]. Assessment of native riparian plant communities to improve agricultural buffer plantings. The Little Chazy River is a 45-km long watercourse in the Lake Champlain basin with headwaters in the eastern foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Land use along the river varies from minimally-managed and largely undisturbed conservation holdings to high-intensity agriculture. This latter use has inspired ongoing long-term research by faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh on nutrient loading and hydrology in the watershed, which in itself has led to a call for improvements in riparian buffer plantings. As a means to define the appropriate native species for buffer plantings, community sampling and surveys were conducted in 20 riparian habitats spanning the length of the river. Diversity and abundance of herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees were determined in the riparian areas using sample lines/transects with a nested plot design. Multivariate ordination found that riparian plant communities mirror shifts in geology, soils, and elevation; and that core elements of these communities can be defined as functional species groups for specific reaches of the river. These core species groups will now be used to inform buffer planting recommendations made to owners of agricultural lands bordering the river.
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1 - SUNY Plattsburgh, Department of Biological Sciences, 101 Broad St. , 101 Broad Street, Plattsburgh, NY, 12901, United States
2 - SUNY Plattsburgh, Center for Earth and Environmental Science, 101 Broad St. , Plattsburgh, NY, 12901, United States
3 - State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, Biological Sciences, 101 Broad Street, Plattsburgh, NY, 12901, USA
4 - SUNY Plattsburgh, Center for Earth and Environmental Science, 101 Broad St. , 101 Broad Street, Plattsburgh, NY, 12901, United States
Keywords:
Diversity
riparian
buffers
clayplain forest
Lake Champlain.
Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for BSA Sections
Session: P2
Location: Event Tent/Cliff Lodge
Date: Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: P2EC006
Abstract ID:189 |
