TY - JOUR
T1 - Restorative recreation
T2 - One landowner's experience restoring a cedar-infested native prairie remnant in Iowa's Loess Hills
AU - Swanson, Patrick C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author would like to thank the many organizations that provided assistance to the restoration and management activities detailed herein, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Iowa DNR and Loess Hills State Forest, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Loess Hills Alliance, the Conservation Corps Minnesota and Iowa and The Nature Conservancy. The author gratefully acknowledges Matt Dollison for sharing several photographs and Stephen Hendrix at the University of Iowa for assistance in identifying some of the Pasque flower visitors in Figure 6.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Ecological Solutions and Evidence published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
PY - 2021/4/1
Y1 - 2021/4/1
N2 - Over 80% of pre-settlement Iowa was a prairie landscape, but conversion and neglect has reduced that to less than 0.1% of the original 30 million acres (12 million hectares). Much of the remaining remnant prairie lies within the Loess Hills landform in western Iowa. Here I describe my experience as a landowner identifying and restoring a native Loess Hills prairie remnant overtaken by Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana). Archived aerial photographs confirm its native remnant status and have been used to monitor restoration progress. Both shearing and hand clearing of cedars have been undertaken at this site, providing an opportunity to compare patterns of ecosystem recovery within one remnant prairie. I find that cedar shearing, though effective at rapidly clearing a large swath of land, was associated with greater abundance of weedy and woody species compared to hand clearing that occurred more gradually over a longer period of time. However, consistent, targeted herbicide application to woody growth, as well as two prescribed fires, have led to good recovery and stabilization of the grassland with minimal annual recruitment of new brush. Photographs of faunal associations with Pasque flowers (Anemone patens) provide an indicator of the biodiversity on this prairie and suggest Pasque flowers, due to their abundance at this site, function as a keystone species that drives early spring ecosystem productivity. Based on my experience, I introduce a paradigm called restorative recreation to provide a framework for integrating ecosystem restoration activities with outdoor recreation to maximize benefits to personal health and well-being, while improving the landscape for other species that share our common home.
AB - Over 80% of pre-settlement Iowa was a prairie landscape, but conversion and neglect has reduced that to less than 0.1% of the original 30 million acres (12 million hectares). Much of the remaining remnant prairie lies within the Loess Hills landform in western Iowa. Here I describe my experience as a landowner identifying and restoring a native Loess Hills prairie remnant overtaken by Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana). Archived aerial photographs confirm its native remnant status and have been used to monitor restoration progress. Both shearing and hand clearing of cedars have been undertaken at this site, providing an opportunity to compare patterns of ecosystem recovery within one remnant prairie. I find that cedar shearing, though effective at rapidly clearing a large swath of land, was associated with greater abundance of weedy and woody species compared to hand clearing that occurred more gradually over a longer period of time. However, consistent, targeted herbicide application to woody growth, as well as two prescribed fires, have led to good recovery and stabilization of the grassland with minimal annual recruitment of new brush. Photographs of faunal associations with Pasque flowers (Anemone patens) provide an indicator of the biodiversity on this prairie and suggest Pasque flowers, due to their abundance at this site, function as a keystone species that drives early spring ecosystem productivity. Based on my experience, I introduce a paradigm called restorative recreation to provide a framework for integrating ecosystem restoration activities with outdoor recreation to maximize benefits to personal health and well-being, while improving the landscape for other species that share our common home.
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U2 - 10.1002/2688-8319.12063
DO - 10.1002/2688-8319.12063
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132676964
VL - 2
JO - Ecological Solutions and Evidence
JF - Ecological Solutions and Evidence
SN - 2688-8319
IS - 2
M1 - e12063
ER -