Abstract
Seasonal forest pools are abundant in the northern Great Lakes forest landscape, but the range of variation in their plant communities and the relationship of this variation to multi-scale landscape features remains poorly quantified. We examined seasonal pools in forests of northern Minnesota USA with the objective of quantifying the range of variation in plant communities within and among different geomorphic and forest settings. Abundances of plant functional groups were highly variable among pools, ranging from those having abundant upland trees, sedges, and perennial forbs to those having abundant wetland sedges, grasses, and forbs. Glacial landform and ecological landtype (local forest and soil type) explained little of this variation, while physical characteristics of the pools (primarily duration of flooding) explained 36% of the variation. Understanding landscape variation in seasonal pool plant communities is important for their conservation and management. If range of variation is understood, representative examples of all variants of pool systems can be identified for conservation, and management prescriptions can be tailored to different landscape settings.
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Allen, T. F. H. and T. B. Starr. 1982. Hierarchy: perspectives for ecological complexity. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA.
Almendinger, J. C., D. S. Hanson, and J. K. Jordan. 2000. Landtype associations of the Lake States. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, St. Paul, MN, USA.
Baker, M. E. and B. V. Barnes. 1998. Landscape ecosystem diversity of river floodplains in northwestern Lower Michigan, U.S.A. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 28: 1405–18.
Barnes, B. V., K. S. Pregitzer, T. A. Spies, and V. H. Spooner. 1982. Ecological forest site classification. Journal of Forestry 80: 493–98.
Batzer, D. P., B. Palik, and R. Buech. 2004. Relationships between environmental characteristics and macroinvertebrate assemblages in seasonal woodland pools of Minnesota, U.S.A. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 23: 50–68.
Brinson, M. M. 1993. Changes in the functioning of wetlands along environmental gradients. Wetlands 13: 65–74.
Brooks, R. T. 2000. Annual and seasonal variation and the effects of hydroperiod on benthic maroinvertebrates of seasonal forest (“vernal”) ponds in central Massachusetts, USA. Wetlands 20: 707–15.
Brooks, R. T., J. Stone, and P. Lyons. 1998. An inventory of seasonal forest pools on the Quabbin Reservoir watershed, Massachusetts. Northeastern Naturalist 5: 219–30.
Burne, M. R. 2001. Aerial photo survey of potential vernal pools. Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, Westborough, MA, USA.
Calhoun, A. J. K., T. E. Walls, S. S. Stockwell, and M. McCollough. 2003. Evaluating vernal pools as a basis for conservation strategies: a Maine case study. Wetlands 23: 70–81.
Chippewa National Forest. 1996. Landtypes of the Chippewa National Forest. Internal Report. USDA Forest Service Chippewa National Forest, Cass Lake, MN, USA.
Cowardin, L. M., V. Carter, F. C. Golet, and E. T. LaRoe. 1979. Classification of wetlands and deepwater habitats of the United States. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC, USA. FWS/OBS 79/31.
Cutko, A. 1997. A botanical and natural community assessment of selected vernal pools in Maine. Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and Maine Natural Areas Program, Augusta, ME, USA.
Davies, P. T. and M. K. Tso. 1982. Procedures for reduced-rank regression. Applied Statistics 31: 244–55.
DeGraaf, R. M. and M. Yamasaki. 2001. New England Wildlife: Habitat, Natural History, and Distribution. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, USA.
De Steven, D. and M. M. Toner. 2004. Vegetation of upper coastal plain depression wetlands: environmental templates and wetland dynamics within a landscape framework. Wetlands 24: 23–42.
Dufrene, M. and P. Legendre. 1997. Species assemblages and indicator species: the need for a flexible asymmetrical approach. Ecological Monographs 67: 345–66.
ECOMAP. 1993. National hierarchical framework of ecological units. USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, USA.
Galatowitsch, S. M. and A. G. van der Valk. 1995. Natural revegetation during restoration of wetlands in the southern prairie pothole region of North America. p. 129–42. In B. D. Wheeler, S. C. Shaw, W. J. Fojt, and R. A. Robertson (eds.) Restoration of Temperate Wetlands. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA.
Gibbs, J. P. 1993. Importance of small wetlands for the persistence of local populations of wetland-associated animals. Wetlands 13: 25–31.
Jorgenson, M. T. 2000. Hierarchical organization of ecosystems at multiple spatial scales on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, U.S.A. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 32: 221–39.
Kashian, D. M., B. V. Barnes, and W. S. Walker. 2003. Landscape ecosystems of northern lower Michigan and the occurrence and management of the Kirtland’s Warbler. Forest Science 49: 140–59.
Keys, J., Jr., C. Carpenter, S. Hooks, F. Koenig, W. H. McNab, W. Russel, and M. L. Smith. 1995. Ecological units of the eastern United States-first approximation (map and booklet of map unit tables). USDA Forest Service, Atlanta, GA, USA.
O’Neill, R. V., D. L. DeAngelis, J. B. Waide, and T. F. H. Allen. 1986. A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystems. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Palik, B., D. P. Batzer, R. Buech, D. Nichols, K. Cease, L. Egeland, and D. E. Streblow. 2001. Seasonal pool characteristics across a chronosequence of adjacent forest ages in northern Minnesota. Wetlands 21: 532–42.
Palik, B. J., D. P. Batzer, and C. Kern. 2006. Upland forest linkages to seasonal wetlands: litter flux, processing, and food quality. Ecosystems 9: 142–51.
Palik, B., R. Buech, and L. Egeland. 2003. Using an ecological land hierarchy to predict the abundance of seasonal wetlands in northern Minnesota forests. Ecological Applications 13: 1153–63.
Palik, B. J., P. C. Goebel, L. K. Kirkman, and L. West. 2000. Using landscape hierarchies to guide restoration of disturbed ecosystems. Ecological Applications 10: 189–202.
Reed, P. 1988. National List of Plant Species That Occur in Wetlands — North Central (Region 3). National Wetland Inventory, U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, St. Petersburg, FL, USA.
Tabachnik, B. G. and L. S. Fidell. 1989. Using Multivariate Statistics, second edition. Harper and Row, New York, NY, USA.
ter Braak, C. J. F. 1987. CANOCO. Agricultural Mathematics Group. Wageningen. The Netherlands. Technical Report LWA-88-02.
ter Braak, C. J. F. 1988. CANOCO classification and related methods. p. 551–58. In H. H. Bock (ed.) Classification and Related Methods of Data Analysis. North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tiner, R. W. 2003. Geographically isolated wetlands of the United States. Wetlands 23: 494–516.
Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and Vermont Department of Wildlife, Non-game and Natural Heritage Program. 2003. Vermont Wetlands BioAssessment Program: An evaluation of the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of seasonal pools and northern white cedar swamps, Waterbury, VT, USA.
Vitt, D. H., S. E. Bayley, and T. L. Jin. 1995. Seasonal variation in water chemistry over a bog-rich fen gradient in continental western Canada. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 52: 587–606.
Wilcox, D. A., R. J. Shedlock, and W. H. Hendrickson. 1986. Hydrology, water chemistry, and ecological relations in a raised mound of Cowles Bog. Journal of Ecology 74: 1103–17.
Zedler, P. H. 2003. Vernal pools and the concept of isolated wetlands. Wetlands 23: 597–607.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Palik, B., Streblow, D., Egeland, L. et al. Landscape variation of seasonal pool plant communities in forests of northern Minnesota, USA. Wetlands 27, 12–23 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1672/0277-5212(2007)27[12:LVOSPP]2.0.CO;2
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1672/0277-5212(2007)27[12:LVOSPP]2.0.CO;2