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Re: Seeding the prairie (was goldenrod)



On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Deborah Shanahan wrote:

> Anyway... I think that the complicating any successional theory is species
> availability. Propagules have to be available at the same time that space
> is available and the space has to be stable enough for the new propagule to
> develop.
> 
> If I visualize the "Ur-prairie", I imagine that it must have had little
> diversity for eons. Slowly, new species arrived -- brought in by wind,
> water and animal -- and were available to be able to take advantage of open
> soil. The process must have been incredibly slow. A new species per
> thousand years? Who knows?
> 
> The experiments of taday could never replicate slow colonization of the
> past. From what I gather, they take place in or near areas already rich in
> prairie species with propagules longing to spread. In other cases people
> bring in a complete species cocktail all at once. That's what anybody has
> done who has ever seeded in a "prairie mixture."
> 

Debby
	I thought I would provide some food for thought regarding the time
it takes to colonize new areas. Consider the mixture of species
found in the prairies of the upper midwest and Great Plains.  I
believe these regions were covered by glaciers as recently as twenty
thousand years ago. Additionaly, many of these areas went through a
succession of communities between the retreat of the ice and the current
state. First an alpine/tundra-like community, then spruce forest,
next deciduous forest and finally prairie.  Each community, with it's 
fairly distinct and unique mix of species, colonized and was replaced by
another within twenty thousand years, and I am inclined to consider that a 
relatively "rapid" process. 

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