1994 North American Conference on Savannas and Barrens
Midwest Oak Ecosystems Recovery Plan DRAFT September 1994
- DEFINITION
- HISTORIC STATUS
- CURRENT CONDITION OF REMNANTS
- CHARACTERIZATION
- Table 1: Midwestern endemic rare plants identified from analysis of Appendices A & B
- Table 2: Other rare/endangered plants reported from savanna/woodland communities in the Midwest
- Table 3: Rare Animals of Midwestern Oak Savannas and Woodlands
- MANAGEMENT
- GOALS AND STRATEGIES
- RESEARCH PRIORITIES
- ROLES AND ACTIONS
- LITERATURE CITED
Appendix A: Attachments
Appendix B: Comprehensive
Midwest List of State-listed plants that are reported from savannas
Appendix C: Geographic
Affinities of State-listed Savanna Plant Species
Appendix D: Status of Rare
Animals associated with Midwestern Oak Savannas and Woodlands
Appendix E: Research Questions
for Restoration of Oak Savannas and Woodlands
A savanna is any area where scattered trees and/or shrubs and other large persistent plants occur over a continuous and permanent groundlayer visually dominated by herbs, usually graminoids.
Subject
Editors: John Bacone Sonja Eichelis Don Faber-Langendoen Alan Haney Doug Ladd George Malanson Noel Pavlovic Larry Stritch |
Coordinating
Editors: Paul Botts Alan Haney Karen Holland Steve Packard |
Introduction
This second draft toward a Midwest Oak Ecosystems Ecosystem Recovery Plan is the product of technical working sessions held in conjunction with the Midwest Oak Savanna Conference in Chicago in February 1993. Scientists, natural resource managers, and practitioners met to pool their knowledge of fire-dependent oak ecosystems, and focus public and private resources on their restoration and management. With the assistance of Working Session and Conference organizing sponsors, The Nature Conservancy, Northeastern Illinois University, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the 107 experts from public agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic and research institutions contributed freely of their experiences and expertise prior to and during the Working Sessions. Their comments and input are the basis of this second draft of the Recovery Plan.
In the months after the conference, the Recovery Plan was revised by section editors. They are John Bacone, Sonja Eichelis, Don Faber-Langendoen, Alan Haney, Doug Ladd, George Malanson, Noel Pavlovic, and Larry Stritch.
More than 40 recommendations for oak ecosystem research surfaced during the Working Sessions. Many suggestions were overlapping or were kernels of ideas requiring expansion and development. All research recommendations were turned over to the Interagency Committee on Ecosystem Management (ICEM) Research Workgroup and discussed, catalogued and edited for the purpose of developing a concise, specific, set of research needs. These needs are outlined in this document. ICEM is a working group of staff representing a diverse group of federal and state agencies. The Research Workgroup assists agencies in developing research projects that are relevant to resource managers and practitioners. Workgroup participants include Sybill Amelon, Fran Harty, Rich Henderson, Ken McCarty, Noel Pavlovic, Lisa Potter-Thomas, Larry Stritch, Ron Sundell, and Richard Whitman. Paul Botts, Bill Franz, and Karen Holland helped to facilitate the discussions.
Because the editors and the Research Workgroup worked independently of each other, a comprehensive edit to smooth out different writing styles, eliminate redundancies, and review all submitted materials to make sure nothing was overlooked was needed. Paul Botts, Alan Haney, Karen Holland, and Steve Packard took the section editors' and Research Workgroup's work and edited it into this postconference draft of the Oak Ecosystems Recovery Plan.
Once again, this is a draft. More work needs to be done. This October 15 and 16, at the Conference on Savannas and Barrens to be held at Illinois State University in Normal are invited to review this draft. Based on comments received during this review, a third draft will be developed. This Plan will be a focus of a September 1995, conference on midwestern oak ecosystems in Missouri.
I. Definition
The scope of this plan was articulated originally as "the fire-dependent oak ecosystems of the Midwest." This is the part of the original natural landscape that had been so poorly served by traditional conservation efforts that for decades had focused on forests, wetlands, and prairie.
In referring to such a forgotten portion of the landscape as "savanna," we followed Curtis (1959), who used the term savanna generically to refer to fire-dependent wooded grasslands. However, most state conservation programs substantially increased the canopy coverage limits from those which Curtis used. This extension was a natural one for conservation purposes, since it provided a framework for conservation of a portion of the landscape continuum that hitherto had been essentially ignored, so far as natural areas protection and management was concerned.
As interest in this area has increased, use of the term "savanna" to describe the more heavily wooded parts of the continuum has led to unproductive debate and confusion. Therefore, in this draft, the word "woodland" is used as a technical term indicating that part of the continuum lying between open savanna and forest.
Thus, following Eiten (1986) and others, and for the purposes of this Recovery Plan, we define savanna (both wooded and shrub grassland) as follows:
A savanna is any area where scattered trees and/or shrubs and other large persistent plants occur over a continuous and permanent groundlayer visually dominated by herbs, usually graminoids.
No particular vegetation type is implied in the name, except to exclude weedy or exotic vegetation. A number of world-wide or nation-wide classifications have added some refinements to this broad definition (UNESCO 1973, Driscoll, 1984).
In this recovery plan, then, "savanna" will be used in the popular sense as a physiognomic category encompassing what also might be called "wooded grassland" or "shrub grassland". "Barrens" is frequently used interchangeably with the latter, and is treated here as a type or condition of savanna in which a combination of poor soil and frequent, intense fire prevents tree forms, even of arborescent species such as oaks. Some generalization about common use to nomenclature may help:
- Savannas (that are not degraded) typically have only two structural layers, an open tree canopy and an herbaceous groundlayer; or a woody shrub layer with an herbaceous ground layer.
- Uneven-aged forests, in contrast, have a complex structure with a minimum of three layers, and often as many as five or six.
- Oaks (Quercus) and pines (Pinus) make up the majority of tree cover on non-degraded savannas in the upper Midwest whereas forests will have a variety of associated species.
- Vegetation in the herb layer is dominated by graminoids (grasses and sedges), of many species. The graminoids form a matrix in which a remarkable number of forbs are found.
For the purposes of this Recovery Plan, we define woodland as follows:
A woodland is an area where moderately dense trees and shrubs (30% to 70% canopy) occur over a continuous and permanent herbaceous groundlayer.
The woodland portion of the continuum has been little studied in its natural state, that is, under a regime of regular fire. Thus all discussion must be ever more tentative than for the open savannas.
Discussion
The term "savanna" has been in use since at least the 16th century. Excellent reviews are available from Bourliere and Hadley (1983) and Eiten (1986, 1992). Bourliere and Hadley point out that the popular usage of the term originally referred to a grassland without woody vegetation. Over time, and particularly among naturalists and botanists in the 19th and 20th centuries, the term was applied to areas with a continuous, usually tall, grass layer with scattered trees.
As Eiten (1986) states, viewpoints about the definition of savanna fall into two major groups: a) that savanna is a physiognomic term referring to vegetation with scattered trees and/or shrubs (or stemless palms), over a continuous and permanent ground layer visually dominated by herbs, usually graminoids, and is applicable to any vegetation type from the equator to the poles; or b) that it is a large-scale vegetation type found only in the tropics-subtropics, intermediate between rainforest and desert. When used as a tropical large-scale vegetation type, "savanna" may include many physiognomic forms, including, as Bourliere and Hadley (1982) and Eiten (1986) note, "savanna grassland," "low tree and shrub savanna," "savanna woodland," and even "savanna forest." Those interested in the many complexities of the application of the term savanna in both senses should refer to Eiten's article. Its application in the tropics has been troublesome to the point that some tropical classifications, even in Africa, have dropped the term (UNESCO 1973, White 1983).
Many midwestern naturalists and ecologists have accepted the first viewpoint, namely that savanna is primarily a physiognomic term. They have chosen to apply it to Midwestern vegetation (Dyksterhuis 1957). Common terms used in the Midwest for savanna-like systems are "oak openings," "plains" (this could include prairie and savanna) and "groves." Curtis (1959) defined savannas as areas with a dominant grass layer and tree canopy cover up to 50%. Others have used similar definitions, but specified canopy covers between 10 and 25% to 10 and 90%. State Natural Heritage Programs have often operationally used savanna in a broad sense to include groundlayers dominated by grasses and where tree cover ranges from 10-50% (Curtis 1959), 10-80% (INAI 1978, Nelson 1985), and 10-100% (Anderson 1982).
If the term savanna is to be used broadly, it should be subdivided into separate categories as is done in the tropics. More usefully, given the original meaning of the term savanna as a grassland, it seems appropriate to call a closed savanna something else, namely woodland, as is now also done in the tropics. This was proposed by Penfound (1962), who distinguished forest, woodland and savanna types in Oklahoma. Such an approach is used by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Program (1993), which defines savannas and woodlands as follows: A savanna has more of a scattered tree canopy with 5-50% (70%) total cover; the matrix surrounding the trees is greater than 30% open grassland or primary communities, and the tall brush cover is generally sparse. A woodland contains a broken to scattered tree canopy, with 30 to 70% (10%) total cover; the matrix surrounding the trees is less than 30% open grassland or primary communities, and the tall brush cover is sparse to dense.
Other naturalists and ecologists agree that a distinction is needed for systems different from either prairie or forest, but suggest "barrens" as a more historically accurate term in the Midwest (Hutchison et al 1986). However, in Missouri "savanna" and "barrens" were used interchangeably (Ladd 1991). The term "barrens" was extensively used in the pre-European settlement survey records in at least several Midwestern states and occasionally by midwestern scientists (Vestal 1936). In a popular sense, barrens most often indicates a site with open, often scrubby vegetation and droughty characteristics, though in Missouri it could also refer to a mosaic of open prairie, open glade, semi-open savanna and open woodland (T. Nigh, pers. comm). It may or may not contain a dominant graminoid layer and can even have a primarily bedrock groundlayer. Unlike savanna, the term barrens has less often been technically defined. In addition, some argue that shrub oak savannas need to be recognized, with shrub cover of 10-25%. This is an active area of research in the Midwest.
From the above discussion it would appear that the terms barrens and savanna are more-or-less equivalent, though not identical. Thus, if the term savanna is used, barrens per se should not be treated merely as a subtype. It is important to emphasize that definitions of savannas should use the joint contribution of trees, shrubs and grasses to total cover, and that the definition of savanna types should proceed beyond structure and define the floristic composition.
II. HISTORIC STATUS
At one time, prior to European settlement, oak savanna and woodland ecosystems occupied a significant portion of the Midwest, probably from 11,000,000 to 13,000,000 hectares. Klopateck et al (1977) estimates that 17-22% of Midwest oak savannas still exist; however, most are highly degraded as a result of timber harvesting methods, over-grazing, agricultural use, fragmentation, and especially, fire suppression.
From a regional perspective, oak ecosystems were probably more stable between 8,000 and 2,000 years ago when the prairie peninsula expanded eastward through the Midwest under hotter and drier conditions than now exist. It is believed they existed in a dynamic equilibrium relative to the vagaries of fire from both lightening and Native American causes. Although oak ecosystem maintenance requires fire, dry climatic conditions favored oak ecosystem species over those inclined to invade in the absence of fire.
As climate moderated, local and regional stability probably decreased as less fire-tolerant species became more prone to invade oak savannas and woodlands. This instability has been exacerbated by post-European settlement anthropogenic actions, especially elimination of bison and elk, introduction of exotic species, and fire suppression.
The prairie-forest border that extends throughout the Midwest has been recognized for some time (Anderson 1983). Over the past 10,000 years, as glacial activity receded northward, the vegetation responded to varying climatic and topographic conditions in a complex fashion.
Efforts to reconstruct the distribution of prairie are useful in indicating how the savanna and woodlands must also have varied (Webb, Cushing and Wright 1983). Prairies moved eastward and westward in response to the changing climate. This climate acted on the vegetation indirectly through fire regimes and topography (Grimm 1983).
Tree composition of the prairie-forest border varied as tree species migrated differentially based on dispersal characteristics and responses to changing climatic conditions (Grimm 1983, Jacobson and Grimm 1986). Many efforts have been made to map pre-European settlement vegetation patterns in the prairie-forest border. These efforts include mapping savanna distribution across entire states (Finley 1976, Marschner 1974).
These maps, which use the early government land survey descriptions, indicate a widespread distribution of oak savanna and woodland vegetation. They are also a snapshot in time, so care must be taken not to infer long-term ecological processes strictly based on spatial distribution. A major implication of all such maps, however, is that oak savannas and woodlands were widespread on the landscape (savanna and woodland are rarely distinguished on state-wide maps; but see Anderson and Anderson 1975, Rodgers and Anderson 1979, Leitner et al 1991, for county applications of these categories). Descriptions in the journals of early European settlers verified the widespread distribution of oak ecosystems.
European settlement either radically altered or eliminated the ecological processes that maintained healthy oak savanna and woodland ecosystems. In fact, processes have been detrimentally affected to a far greater degree than for most other natural systems (forests, marshes, bogs), such that we have few healthy examples with which to understand the past. What we now document and describe are systems functioning with altered ecological processes. Some of these ecosystems may have the potential to function as did their pre-European settlement analogs; others may not.
The prairie-forest border was never fixed on the landscape and some ecosystems no doubt would have changed regardless of human influence. The effects of human influence versus natural dynamic changes, however, cannot always be easily teased apart.
III. CURRENT CONDITION OF REMNANTS
"Beyond question, an oak savanna with an intact
groundlayer is the rarest plant community in Wisconsin today."
(Curtis, 1959)
Nuzzo (1986) estimated that only 0.02% of pre-European settlement oak savanna areas still supported good savannas. In 1985, 113 sites totaling 2,607 hectares of relatively high-quality oak savanna communities of various types were located. Two-thirds were on sandy, rocky, or similarly droughty sites. Nuzzo found no intact, high-quality, deep-soil mesic savannas. Continued work throughout the Midwest confirms this dismal appraisal, although a few additional high-quality fragments have been located, and many degraded remnants are responding well to restoration efforts.
Oak savannas and woodlands on drought-prone sites are much more numerous, contain most of their potential plant diversity (often badly degraded), and respond more quickly to restoration efforts. In contrast, mesic savannas are less common and much more degraded. Because they are so overgrown with trees and shrubs, many can scarcely be recognized. Under pre-European settlement fire regimes mesic savannas may have contained a greater species richness than oak savannas on drier sites. However, a rapid increase in or invasion of a few aggressive native or non-native species following fire suppression has resulted in greater loss of species richness of native plants and a corresponding loss of animal species (Apfelbaum and Haney 1991).
Curtis (1959) suggested that on mesic sites where oaks had been replaced by shade tolerant mesophytes, fires were capable of eliminating all trees, resulting in the development of mesic prairies. On more xeric sites, according to Curtis, fires did not eliminate oaks, and woodlands became savannas. Infrequent fire, therefore, would tend to eliminate mesic savannas while maintaining xeric savannas.
Mesic savannas are even less common now because they occurred on better agricultural soils, were more easily converted to mesic forests, and tended to occur in areas that were more intensively developed. One of the rarest but formerly most widespread mesic savanna types is the tallgrass savanna found on level or gently rolling rich soils. Bur oak is the prevailing tree species.
In the absence of fire, all mesic savannas are quickly overwhelmed by an increase in woody plant species, including exotics such as European and smooth buckthorns. Native herb species are soon out-competed by woody species resulting in the reduction or outright loss of the herbaceous layer (Apfelbaum and Haney 1991). The increased shade from the woody species contributes to the reduction in herbaceous species. With deepening shade and increased moisture, leaf litter decomposes, leaving the soil surface exposed to erosion, and making fire nearly impossible. This syndrome is also common in other mesic savannas, but usually develops more slowly.
The most extensive mesic savanna complex still existing occurs on Walpole Island, Ontario. Continued burning by Native Americans maintains savanna communities together with associated wetlands and prairies.
How abundant oak ecosystems were at the time of pre-European settlement depends on how these ecosystems are defined and interpreted. Curtis (1959) tended to view savannas as transition communities between grasslands and forests. He argued that the understory of oak openings were dominated by prairie forbs and grasses, along with a few forest herbs. His data indicated only six species that reached peak dominance in oak openings.
Packard (1988) points out that most of Curtis's work occurred in the 1940s, after 20 years of aggressive fire suppression and nearly 100 years after European settlement of the region. Many plant species, Packard argues, which were abundant in the pre-European settlement savanna landscape, were already uncommon by the time Curtis documented the vegetation of Wisconsin.
IV. CHARACTERIZATION
Ecologists and conservationists began describing what was left of oak savannas in the 1940's. In the Upper Midwest, much of the early work was done at the University of Wisconsin by John T. Curtis and his students, J. Roger Bray and R.P. McIntosh. Since much of their work guided other savanna researchers, it is important to review their contribution to savanna characterization.
In general, Curtis emphasized both the continuous nature of floristic change among stands along gradients, with no discrete associations being evident, and the dynamic nature of the vegetation. Vegetation composition does not reflect a tight connection to site factors, but ultimately depends on historic factors. The continuum was a reflection of both abiotic gradients and historic factors.
Structure
Concerning structural differences, Curtis (1959, p 331) cited Clements (1928), who stated, "The transition [from savanna] to forest or woodland is usually gradual, and it is impossible to draw a sharp line between the two." Curtis arbitrarily divided the physiognomic continuum into prairie (trees < 1 acre), savanna (trees > 1 acre and up to 50% canopy cover), and forest (canopy cover > 50%). He also noted that tree density and spatial distribution varied, with extreme aggregation being the rule.
Curtis considered the prairie-savanna distinction problematic. He acknowledged that the limit of savanna at 1 tree per acre was highly artificial and may be biologically misleading, since in his words, "Savanna lands were recorded by the land surveyors where the trees were an average of more than 200 feet apart and where many witness trees were as far apart as a quarter of a mile. Such very open savannas would be classed as prairies in this study, but their physiognomy as seen by a traveler and their behavior with respect to fire would be very different from those of a true prairie. As a matter of fact, all of these savannas are related to brush prairie rather than true prairie." Curtis, along with Bray (1960) also mentioned that, despite the presence of a tree layer, savanna was dominated by grasses.
Thus in Curtis' mind there was, in addition to the prairie continuum along a moisture gradient, a prairie continuum along a structural gradient, which he distinguished as "true prairie" and "brush prairie". However, he made no summary of floristic composition based on these categories, simply stating that the true prairie was most common in southwest Wisconsin, and brush prairie more common in south central and central Wisconsin. He did note that because mesic prairies were almost completely utilized by farming, most sites were along railroad rights of way and old cemeteries.
Classification
In questions of classification, this plan follows the Midwest Regional Community Classification (see Attachment 2 of Appendix A) developed by the Nature Conservancy in cooperation with state and federal conservation agencies (Faber-Langendoen, in preparation).
Midwest Regional Community Classification: Summary
A definition for Midwest savannas
Based on discussions at the oak savanna conference, and the papers presented by R. Henderson and D. Nyberg as part of the conference, the proposal is made that we limit the use of the term savanna to tree canopies of (5) 10-25 (50)%. The term savanna will be used in the popular sense as a physiognomic category, but in the classification below will technically be called either "wooded grassland" or "shrub grassland."
Following Eiten (1986) and others, savanna (both wooded and shrub grassland) is defined as follows: "A savanna is any area where scattered trees and/or shrubs and other large persistent plants occur over a continuous and permanent groundlayer visually dominated by herbs, usually graminoids."
Woodlands, by contrast have an open to partially closed canopy where shrubs, forbs and other non-graminoid plants may dominate or codominate with the graminoids. The groundlayer is no longer the clear dominant. In this way the range of physiognomic classes for all vegetation can be defined as follows:
I. FOREST = 60 (80) - 100% tree cover
II. WOODLAND = 25 (30) - 60 (80) % tree cover
III. WOODED GRASSLAND (savanna,barrens) (5) 10-25 (30) % tree cover
IV. HERBACEOUS (grassland), with tree cover 0 - (5) 10%
Additional categories can be recognized for SHRUBLAND (25-100%, including shrub thickets) and SHRUB GRASSLAND (10-25%). An outline of the limits of savanna are presented in Table 1.
This classification is offered for several reasons:
- In this way savanna is narrowed to one end of the canopy continuum and placed more firmly within the herbaceous-dominated vegetation. It is hard to conceive that with 60-80% tree cover, the groundlayer of grasses are still the dominants, or that trees are scattered.
- The application of the woodland category to much of the partially open canopy area (25-60%) may be a more realistic term for those oak-dominated and grassland systems that more typically were closed over.
The application of these categories to specific sites does not require that a wooded grassland type fit the physiognomic definition exactly. Types, as reviewed below, are defined by their most characteristic physiognomy, but it will require knowledge of the site's characteristics and landscape processes to determine how best to manage the site. A certain amount of flexibility is also required because other criteria are used to define community types, such as dominant plant species or complete floristic data.
It should be stressed that the types proposed here are based on geographic patterns of major dominant species and their responses along ecological gradients. Thus they are intended to serve as initial guides for the diversity of savanna types in the Midwest. However, virtually all of these types have received little documentation. A concerted effort needs to be expended to characterize the distribution of these types throughout the Midwest.
Several additional classification systems were offered for consideration as a part of this plan (see Appendix A). Two of them, by Rich Henderson and Dennis Nyberg, deserve particular consideration as this plan is refined. Henderson distinguished between two forest types, while Nyberg pegged definitions to easily measured parameters. A chart comparing a variety of definition systems as to canopy cover and certain other characteristics can also be found in Appendix A.
Discussion
Ecosystem classification systems provide a framework for describing the patterns of ecosystems, including biodiversity. They facilitate communication between scientists and managers. Even the very effort to develop a classification system stimulates discussion and focuses attention on characteristics or attributes that help our understanding of ecosystems. How do they differ, and why? What are the commonalities, and the discontinuities? Describing and classifying ecosystems also calls attention to those that are most rare. This helps guide conservation practices.
Any savanna and woodland classification method must use ecologically meaningful and defensible criteria that allows for their recognition, identification, and determination of restorability. Classification typically results in identification of discrete and definable units, despite the continuous variation present within a unit. We alert the reader to other problems inherent in classification. It is far too easy to design a classification that fixes on a point in time in evaluation and administration of programs of restoration. Private landowners and agencies and others will need to appreciate the dynamic nature of savanna and woodlands to enable restoration to take an appropriate course. We may visit an area and decide, because trees are abundant, that the site is a woodland when a single fire can convert it to a savanna or even a barrens. It is difficult to make the choice to reduce tree cover even though the system historically functioned with much less tree cover. Decisions regarding whether the classification permits or emphasizes historic, current or future (site potential) conditions need to be weighed.
Composition
Given the fragmentary condition of the natural vegetation in Wisconsin at the time Curtis studied it (the picture was no different in Illinois, Iowa or northern Missouri), any assessment of original biodiversity is greatly hindered. Curtis attempted to draw together the existing information for Wisconsin using the continuum approach. He usually summarized the vegetation patterns by their position along the moisture gradient, as inferred from the vegetational continuum index, e.g. southern dry-mesic forest, dry prairie. He then determined which species were most prevalent or constant (modal) in each type. Types varied as to how many modal species they contained, with the suggestion that types with few modal species were less distinctive than other vegetation types.
A great deal of debate has emerged over how distinctive savannas were, given that some of the savanna types, particularly oak openings and pine barrens, appeared to be the least distinctive of all community types with the number of modal species found there being only 8 and 7 respectively. Some have argued that savannas were simply an ecotone between prairie and forest, and therefore less distinctive; others wondered whether conservation efforts were all that critical given the lack of distinctiveness and the dependence on disturbances.
Two major cautionary points are in order for any assessment of savanna, for example with respect to Curtis' work in Wisconsin. First, we have already seen how fragmentary were the areas available for study. Second, because of the lack of information, Curtis actually combined several types of oak savannas together: "Because of these incompleteness in both north and south, it has been deemed best to pool the information for all stands of each of the four major types [Pine Barrens, Oak Barrens, Cedar Glades, and Oak Openings] and to present their average composition as a basis for further discussion (1959, p. 328)." Thus Curtis lumped together all dry-mesic and mesic oak openings (and potentially woodlands). Such lumping could have obscured any species that showed strong preferences for certain segments of the oak savanna continuum (Packard 1993). A reanalysis of the Curtis data set is underway (Faber-Langendoen and Drake in prep), and a significant number of new modal species are added to the various oak savanna and woodland community types that sort out along the physiognomic and moisture gradient, suggesting that the lack of distinctive species in oak savanna types was partially an artifact of lumping.
Even with an improved species list for the various oak ecosystems, we are unable to easily understand how to relate this information to restoration activities because few extensive stands remain in which to interpret how stand composition (floristics) was organized spatially and temporally. Nevertheless, floristic lists provide a beginning point for determining what belongs in the system, even if we are unsure about the organization.
Conservation of biodiversity requires the consideration of all levels of diversity: a (community species diversity at a site), including genes, species, communities, landscapes and ecological and evolutionary processes. We focus here on the genetic and the species levels.
Genes
The Midwest has relatively low species diversity (see endemic plants in Table 2, for example), in part because its moderate topography does not foster speciation. But the genetic allelic variability of species with populations spanning great ranges (east-west, north-south, wet-dry, sun-shade, etc., see Appendix C) is thought to be great. Although many savanna-inhabiting species are near the peripheries of their ranges, their contributions to the diversity within the species' gene pool should not be discounted. Peripheral populations may be genetically unique and should therefore be protected.
Conserving genetic diversity within savanna inhabiting species depends on identifying populations which encompass the full range of morphological and genetic variation within each species' gene pool. The genetic structure of species populations can be quite different. For some species, much of the genetic diversity is present within each local population. In these cases, local populations should be kept as large as possible. Other species have their genetic diversity dispersed among many populations. In these cases, many individual local populations should be protected. Although knowledge about the genetic variation within savanna-inhabiting species is sparse and difficult to obtain, the following guidelines should improve the likelihood that genetic diversity is maintained during conservation planning and management.
- Local genotypes (i.e., individuals from ecologically similar populations) should be used in restoration efforts when it is possible and practical.
- Local genomes can be threatened by introgression (the genetic "contamination" that can accompany the invasion of a population by genetically dissimilar individuals from some other population or species). When feasible, local genomes should be protected from introgression of non-local genes and closely related species genes.
- When the persistence of a small population is threatened and the only individuals available for increasing the size of the population come from sources with different alleles or allele frequencies, outbreeding should take place. In the absence of specific genetic information on the populations involved, outbreeding should be encouraged because selective breeding or natural selection in the local environment can ultimately restore allele frequencies similar to those in the original population.
- For some plant species, consideration of the breeding system may be important in conservation actions because reproduction is dependent on allelic diversity (see DeMauro 1993 for an example).
Species
Among the species that are associated with oak savanna landscapes, there are many that are rare nationally, regionally, or at the state level. For example, more than 800 species of vascular plants have been recorded from savanna remnants. Of these, 28 species are listed as threatened or rare. Many species are representative of savanna/woodland communities. Before discussing in detail the importance of savanna for conservation of biodiversity, we need to examine the organisms reported from savanna/woodland communities. Appendices B, C, & D list known rare or endangered Midwestern savanna woodland plants and animals.
In combination, the plant and animal lists illustrate that there is a component of Midwest savanna/woodland diversity that is endemic. Conserving species populations depends on identifying sites or concentrations of viable populations of plants and animals that depend on functional oak savanna landscapes.
Plants
Appendix B is a comprehensive list of state listed vascular plants that are reported from savanna/woodland in at least one state. The common names and federal, global, and state status and presence are given for each species. An additional list of 55 coastal plain disjunct species that are associated with depressions in the savanna woodland matrix are also presented. Although these are not representative of savannas and woodlands per se, their conservation in many cases is intimately tied to savanna conservation.
Appendix C is a similar list that is sorted by geographic affinities. From the 211 species recorded from savanna/woodland, only 9 (4.3%) can be considered endemic to Midwestern savannas and woodlands (Table 1). No doubt additional species (Table 2) are quite rare and may be most abundant in these partially shaded savanna woodland communities, but are not limited to Midwestern savanna/woodland communities (Pavlovic and Swisher in prep). What is surprising is that a larger number of species reported from Midwestern savannas and woodlands range into similar open habitats in the Southeast (59 species) and the South (53 species). On the basis of endemic plants the Midwestern savanna woodland complex cannot be singled out for endemism as a single rationale for conservation; however, since many of these rare species represent peripheral populations and may be genetically and evolutionarily distinct, their preservation is warranted.
Animals
Appendix D presents a summary of the animals reported for Midwest savannas and woodlands. Little is known about many of these organisms. It is likely that many may now depend on savanna/woodland remnants throughout the Midwest. Reptiles and amphibians of wetlands adjacent to savannas may be dependent on the maintenance of open savanna for thermoregulation of adults and developing eggs during times of high water levels (Resetar pers. comm.). It is quite clear that many of the invertebrates such as the Karner blue butterfly are highly dependent on the conservation of oak savannas.
Table 1: Midwestern endemic
rare plants identified from analysis of Appendices A & B
Table 2: Other rare/endangered plants reported from
savanna/woodland communities in the Midwest
Table 3: Rare Animals of Midwestern Oak Savannas and
Woodlands
V. Management
STEPS TO CONSERVE BIODIVERSITY
An outline approach similar to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plan is used here to identify the steps necessary to conserve savanna/woodland biodiversity. Careful consideration must be given to the fundamental goal of the savanna/woodland restoration because we cannot always manage for historical states of a system or region. In addition, the consequences and costs of restoring and not restoring should be clarified.
INVENTORY AND RANK SAVANNA WOODLAND SPECIES DIVERSITY
- Identify and rank rare savanna species based on detailed habitat, distribution, and abundance data.
- Plants
- Compile and analyze detailed abundance and distribution data to rank vascular plants.
- Inventory mosses, liverworts, fungi, and lichens.
- Animals
- Compile and analyze detailed abundance and distribution data to rank invertebrates.
- Compile and analyze detailed abundance and distribution data to rank vertebrates.
- Identify areas having high diversity of rare species and large area S which may be core preservation areas across geographic and ecological continua. Large relatively intact areas of savanna/woodland complexes are likely to be the most viable in the long run irrespective of the abundance of the constituent communities. Therefore, besides species rarity, ranking should incorporate total reserve area and rarity of communities in landscape mosaic.
- Identify key parcels which enlarge and/or link existing preserves to consolidate species protection. Clusters of small reserves may be linked to effectively function as a larger ecosystem unit. This can be done by restoring intervening areas to natural or quasi-natural condition, conservation easements, and other mechanisms.
- Identify sites suitable for or requiring restoration based on degree of degradation and utility to act as core areas or landscape corridors for rare species.
- Prepare species recovery plans for the rarest species. For the rarest organisms recovery plans should be developed to guide their conservation. As always such plans should address the necessary balance between single species management and ecosystem biodiversity management.
- Identify major threats to rare species viability.
PROTECT AND MANAGE SAVANNA/WOODLAND BIODIVERSITY
Achieve highest level of protection possible for species and their sites.
- Identify range of protection levels possible ranging from land purchase to private land owner voluntary protection for each site.
- Institute land owner contact program and owner contact program coupled with educational materials, legal and financial incentives and/or recommendations incorporating conservation and sustainable use will encourage private land owners to participate in savanna/woodland restoration.
- Plan and implement savanna/woodland preserve system. Prioritization of goals, especially restoration on landscape level to preserve the variety and pattern of native areas (savanna, prairies, woodland, wetlands).
- Purchase land when appropriate for species conservation.
- Explore legal/regulatory/incentives approaches to help to protect key oak ecosystems and their rare species. Economic incentives can help when we can't convince land owners or managers that we're doing the right thing. Where possible, economic incentives can sell the right thing.
Manage savanna/woodland sites
Natural Processes
- Initiate management practices designed to sustain or emulate natural processes. Restoration of savanna/woodland complexes should involve the reintroduction of natural disturbance processes such as fire and grazing. Of course research should provide guidance when and how to do this.
- Foster education opportunities for managers and researchers. Train managers and resource personnel in management of natural ecosystems and management of dynamic successional processes in preserve landscapes. On site training could include latest management practices (fire, cutting etc.) and approaches to managing heterogeneous landscapes in a heterogeneous fashion. Other workshops or symposia could include communication of rare plant species management research results and their implications for ecosystem management.
Restore priority damaged sites
Law enforcement
- Enforce protection at various levels of jurisdiction: federal agencies and Endangered Species Act, state nature preserves, private nature preserves, and county and municipal parks
- Involve private citizens protection when possible and appropriate.
Promote ecosystem level management and rare species biology research. Only by integrating species biology and management research can we predict the impacts of management on these species and influence their viability. The goal is to focus on the processes rather than costly single species triage.
Foster development of buffer zones to minimize fragmentation by encouraging appropriate surrounding land use. Need to consider surrounding land use and how it might be modified to minimize the insularity of the landscape. It might be possible that some portion of the landscape may be maintained in a less than natural state.
Encourage federal, state, municipal, and private cooperation in rare species management and protection.
- Large blocks of savanna/woodland are often managed by several different groups or agencies who do not communicate or cooperate as they could. This represents a general lack of working relationships between management agencies of public lands, private land owners, etc. Such cooperation would result in less duplication of effort, pooling of resources for a common goal, and sharing of information and management of projects.
- Cooperation will provide a forum for discussing and perhaps resolving conflicts in land management goals among land management agencies managing the same or other ecosystems. This would also provide a forum for discussing the impacts and conflicts among recreational resource users. The Interagency Committee for Ecosystem Management under the Environmental Roundtable is an model approach to coordination.
Educate public about oak savanna/woodland conservation and ecosystem conservation in general. The value of biodiversity is poorly recognized by the public. Without public support conservation of oak savanna/woodland biodiversity will fail. Education should incorporate all media and all education, race, and age levels.
SUSTAINABLE RESTORATION
Virtually all savannas are degraded to some extent and will require various degrees of restoration. Some of the potentially best savannas are so degraded that the composition and structure of the canopy is typically a poor criteria for their recognition. Therefore, they may not be recognized as savannas and may be lost for lack of proper management.
Sustainable restoration of woodlands and savannas for biodiversity attributes is a new field, with much of the theory and technology being invented as current efforts progress and new efforts are initiated. Derivation of restoration and management technologies will not be a linear process, but will proceed by fits, starts, and setbacks as the science grows and develops. Innovation and open-mindedness will be primary requirements for success.
Community structure refers to horizontal and vertical placement of biotic elements in the community, and has typically been measured for larger components of the system, such as trees. The primary objective of structural restoration goals are to recreate/emulate the pre-European settlement structure of the community, based on the best information available. Structural parameters must be linked to the response of a broad spectrum of the biota to be meaningful.
Compositional restoration goals focus on the re-establishment of the floristic and faunistic components of the community believed to have occurred historically on a given site. Management for a predetermined structural or species abundance level risks disenfranchising other important components of the system in blind pursuit of criteria that may have less ecological validity.
Restoration goals related to environmental criteria focus on re-creating or emulating environmental factors, including prevailing process regimes, to which the organisms comprising the system are genetically attuned. In practice, successful restoration and management of woodland and savanna systems will include elements of all three concepts, with structural considerations largely driven by compositional and environmental parameters.
It is imperative that restoration and management take a landscape approach. Larger areas, encompassing wetlands, prairie, barrens, woodlands, and forests should be incorporated into single management units as much as possible. This often will necessitate cooperation of multiple owners and managers. Using broadscale prescribed fire, across a varied landscape, has the greatest potential to restore the natural mosaic and minimize the fragmentation and frail human judgment that necessarily accompanies single community approaches to restoration.
As much as possible, restoration should allow fire to cull species and plants from the landscape. Exotic plants, however, may require special attention, although care is needed that attempts to eradicate them not endanger native species.
Generally, mechanical removal of exotics, species not tolerant to fire, shade tolerant, and small diameter trees will most closely simulate what fire would have eliminated. Large diameter oaks, especially bur and black, are remarkably fire resistant. Large oaks were often the only trees that survived in savannas that burned regularly.
Many scientists have expressed concern that extreme caution be exercised with plant introductions. Because of widespread disturbance and degradation, it is impossible to ascertain the pre-European settlement diversity and composition of degraded savannas. It is risky to assume that one might introduce all species potentially found on a site, and let survival establish a community composition identical to the pre-European settlement community. Many native species have the potential to become aggressive under some conditions, and could disrupt delicate ecological balances. Where possible, most scientists prefer to put primary emphasis on restoring natural landscape processes, and allowing species to establish their place in the landscape. At a minimum, species introduced to a community should come from local sources, and very similar communities.
Several factors must be considered when evaluating species reintroductions as part of management or restoration work. Savanna/woodland management should be based on a holistic, systems-oriented approach, and not predicated on single species management, or maximizing the prevalence of a small group of organisms. While rare species may be important components of some restoration work, rare species should not distract the focus from conservation of a synecologically healthy, biologically diverse system complex. Common species that are conservative to savanna/woodland systems should be a major component of restoration and management work.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION
Fire
Of the many processes influencing woodland and savanna systems, fire is perhaps the most
visible example of a process totally impacted by patterns of post-European settlement
anthropogenics. Fire was a regular component of oak systems. Post-European settlement fire
suppression has resulted in a proliferation of woody vegetation in contemporary woodland
and savanna remnants, with a corresponding reduction of graminoid ground cover matrices
and their associated forb diversity. Fire suppression has also resulted in shifts in
canopy replacement dynamics.
Any management or restoration scenario for oak woodland or savanna must include provisions for prescribed fire. Although fire seasonality, timing, frequency, and fuel bed characteristics are largely unknown, fire was a common denominator linking oak systems with related components of the pre-European settlement landscape. Fire plays an essential role in nutrient cycling, biotic composition, and structural attributes of woodlands and savannas.
Fire promotes survival of savanna communities by reducing shade, removing duff, stimulating germination, and maintaining habitat structure for certain animal species. In general, diversifying the fire regime for a site will increase biological diversity. Fire diversification includes varying the proportion, location, and size of area burned on any single burn, varying the frequencies that areas are burned, varying the mosaic of burns on a particular site, and varying the intensities of burns by conducting fire management in different weather and seasonal conditions.
Most accept that emulating pre-European settlement fire events in terms of area, extent, seasonality, frequency, and fire behavior will maximize the ecological health of woodland and savanna systems, and facilitate retention of the conservative elements of their biodiversity. Management should include monitoring the site-specific effects of burns and modifications of ongoing protocols in response to the results. No single prescription can apply to all sites.
Fire regimes in the savanna region varied spatially and temporally. Sites on south and west slopes, on the west side of rivers and wetlands, and those with adjacent prairies apparently burned more regularly and probably with greater intensity. Those near major travel routes, villages, and popular encampments of Native Americans apparently burned more often. Dry sites burned more often and with greater intensity than mesic sites. All sites burned more often and with greater intensity during periods of hotter and drier climatic shifts.
Fire frequency and intensity (the fire regime), therefore, was specific to each site and was a major factor in shaping the species composition of the communities that developed.
Fall burning emulates the aboriginal fire cycle throughout much of the Midwest, and allows for fall seeding of degraded areas and the opportunity for seed to stratify over winter. Spring burning reduces the erosion potential of poorly vegetated restoration sites, and allows prescribed fire to be used in areas where the fuel is primarily leaf litter from the previous season. The frequency of burning will vary with the individual area and its current condition. There are many viewpoints regarding fire timing, frequency, and necessity of special protective measures for invertebrates. Some practitioners advocate annual burning, while others favor burning on two to four year rotations or less frequently. Some managers advocate intense fires in the initial stages of site rehabilitation, while others favor cooler, less intense burns. Similarly, there are valid arguments for utilizing spring, winter, fall, or even summer burns.
Each site must be evaluated on an individual basis, in the context of what is known about its presettlement biology and process cycles. Care must also be taken, especially in early stages of site restoration, to insure that desired fire behavior and ecological objectives are achieved. For example, fuel bed characteristics may be so altered that fire behavior is markedly different from fire behavior under similar conditions in an intact site.
Herbivory
Herbivory, sometimes including grazing by large mammals, is a component of woodland and
savanna management. Little research has been conducted on diversity-related effects of
large mammal grazing in oak woodlands and savannas. In many regions, there is a pre-
European settlement antecedent for such grazing and browsing; many of our woodland and
savanna systems were utilized by deer, bison, elk, and pronghorn.
Post-European settlement use of woodland and savanna systems more often has been intensive grazing by cattle, or total exclusion of grazing activity in areas identified as having conservation values. The role of low intensity, or short duration, high intensity grazing needs to be explored in these systems. There may well be a cohort of organisms dependant upon the presence of grazers and their associated processes. Mowing has been suggested as an alternative to both grazing and fire management in woodland systems, but does not fully emulate the effects of either process, and the biological compatibility of mowing as a substitute for burning or grazing remains unknown.
If utilized, grazing by livestock should be managed to reflect the grazing patterns of the native elk and bison herds with sufficient time for the recovery of herbaceous vegetation. The general consensus is that grazing should not be allowed in areas where the seed bank contains a significant presence of disturbance-adapted exotics. In some cases, deer are overabundant and need to be controlled at an appropriate level.
Other Vegetation Management
Particularly in the early phases of site restoration, mechanical clearing may be required
to achieve management goals, such as the establishment of a graminoid matrix or to
facilitate prescribed fire. Removing selected canopy trees and excessively dense native
shrubs may be necessary to ensure the survival of the desired savanna community. Often,
only the younger invading species need be cut. Opening up the savanna too much can cause
vigorous sprouting of oaks and hickories and eliminate the micro-habitat variation
provided by scattered trees, unless provision is made for ongoing fire management.
Whenever heavy slash is created by cutting activities, caution must be used in evaluating the fuel potential of the slash and choosing burn conditions that will minimize impacts from burning it. One alternative to cutting and leaving fallen slash throughout an area is to pile and burn it as it is cut. This localizes the effects of the burning and reduces problems associated with fallen slash during the growing season. Experience on several sites has demonstrated that the sites of pile burning have good recovery potential.
Too rapid a reduction in the canopy can lead to severe encroachment of weedy species, so a gradual clearing sequence, undertaken over several seasons, may be more desirable. In areas where good community diversity still exists, the use of manual tools or smaller scale power equipment (e.g., chain saws or weed eaters) is recommended. Hand tools may be good choices for smaller sites. Larger and lower quality areas may be cleared by heavy machinery. Mowers, shredders, and bulldozers are a cost-effective way to remove brush from the large areas. In such instances, the deleterious effects of heavy equipment must be weighed against their increased efficiency. Soil disruptions induced by bulldozers may be acceptable in some areas but not in others.
Regardless the means utilized for the physical removal of brush, in most cases it must be followed with prescribedfire. Opinions vary on the role of herbicides in conjunction with tree and brush cutting, but the general consensus appears to favor their use as stump treatments in initial phases of restoration work.
The benefits of brush removal can be maximized by clearing at the appropriate stage in plant growth cycles, such as before seed dispersal or when root metabolite levels are lowest. Girdling certain species may be more efficacious than the cut-and-herbicide method. Removal of unripe seed heads may be appropriate to reduce undesired species on small or sensitive sites.
Plant Reintroduction
Depending on the condition of the site and its previous land use history, reintroduction
of certain species may be desirable. In general, species should not be translocated into
high-quality remnants. It is preferable, where possible, to allow native, on-site germ
material to recoalesce as conditions favor their establishment, but this is not possible
in very degraded areas.
In degraded areas, when brush is removed, a fuel matrix may need to be reestablished, comprised of grasses, sedges, and forbs. Some perennial woodland grasses are neglected components of site restorations. In northeastern Illinois these include long-awned wood grass (Brachyelytrum erectum), broad-leaved panic grass (Panicum latifolium), and leafy satin grass (Muhlenbergia mexicana). Sod-forming woodland sedges, such as Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica), may be key components of this matrix. These species provide fuel for the fire regime the woodland system is dependent upon, as well as facilitating water infiltration and pedogenesis.
In very open savanna, on the bared soil resulting from clearing and initial restoration efforts, the planting of an temporary fuel matrix mixed with appropriate native grasses and forbs has been suggested. This would facilitate rapid stabilization of erosion-prone soils and create a temporary fuel matrix, and might facilitate establishment of slower growing native species. A better understanding of how successional restoration can be applied in savannas and woodlands is needed.
Techniques for compositional restoration of plant species include seeding directly into an established matrix (successional restoration), direct seeding into bare ground, establishment of rootstocks and planting of transplants. Savanna composition, especially in the early stages of recovery, will fluctuate dramatically. Certain conservative species develop more slowly than "first wave" species, such as the rye grasses (Elymus) and many savanna composites. These "first wave" species will experience rapid expansion in the early stages of recovery, and eventually decline in importance as the site matures.
A regimen of prescribed fire and weed control will help ensure the integrity and diversity of the restored savanna community. Weedy species, both exotic and native, such as buckthorn (Rhamnus spp.), honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.), garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolaris), Canada and nodding thistles (Cirsium arvense and Carduus nutans), and burdock (Arctium minus) can move into newly cleared sites, temporarily threatening restoration efforts. This problem may result from an inability to establish an adequate and appropriate native plant matrix that can effectively out-compete the aggressive weeds. Perseverance and maintaining or emulating the pre-European settlement process regimes and environmental conditions to which the native biota are genetically acclimated will maximize restoration potential.
Seeds
The success of efforts to restore savanna plant species is heavily dependant on the timing
of seeding and the availability of viable seed sources of local genotypes. If reseeding is
to be employed, it should accompany structural restoration. If desirable savanna species
are not present on site or are introduced shortly after structural restoration is
completed, the cleared area will fill in with whatever species are able to colonize the
disturbed area; these are often weedy exotics. Fall seeding after a burn allows natural
stratification through frost and thaw, but also risks unacceptable levels of seed
predation in some species. Raking seed in after a burn results in a higher recruitment rate
than simply scattering seeds, but it is not always practical in large areas.
If adequate seed sources are not available, efforts should be taken to establish seed production gardens to ensure increased propagation of local genotypes. Whenever local sources are available, the purchase of seed from commercial sources should be avoided, thus eliminating questions of genotype and source location. Any seed collection efforts should be undertaken ethically, and so as not to compromise the integrity or sustainability of donor sites. Efforts should be made to insure that this protocol is adhered to by any commercial sources employed in the restoration. As representative examples, some suggested species to include in restoration planting mixes are provided in Appendices 6.1 to 6.3.
The identification of appropriate blends of seeds to achieve viable and sustainable savanna matrices is crucial to restoration efforts. These must be derived on a local basis, based on careful study of contemporary examples and analysis of historical accounts. Successful restoration of these matrices will help to maintain soil structure, and minimize invasion of unwanted pioneer and weedy species. Multiple savanna matrices may need to be identified, for the various microhabitats found in most woodlands. Seeding with the appropriate matrices for savanna restoration should lead to the evolution of a diverse savanna community.
The introduction of certain slow-growing or physically small species may require staged plantings, to increase their survival. Seeds of smaller plant species or of species that develop slowly can be seeded directly into appropriate matrices which will prevent frost heave of delicate seedlings.
Animal Reintroductions
Many conservative animals will require a higher quality habitat than afforded by the
initial phases of restoration. Introduction of animals requires habitat of sufficient size
and quality for the species. As with plant reintroductions, animal reintroductions should
be undertaken only if there is supporting evidence for the species presence as a native
component of the local biota. Restoration techniques for animal species include habitat
improvement to augment naturally occurring populations, release of captive reared stock,
and transplants from areas of surplus population to areas of low or non-existent
populations.
Site Selection Considerations
The following size considerations play an important role in site selection. Woodland and
savanna remnants of 30-40 acres or smaller may have biodiversity values, especially for
plant communities and as reservoirs of locally adapted genotypes. Small sites are subject
to degradation from catastrophic disturbances, like tornados, which can occur on a scale
exceeding the size of the unit. To protect many animals of woodlands and savannas,
especially birds, reserves should be 300-400 acres. To accommodate catastrophic
disturbance as well as larger animal populations and area-dependent meta-populations,
savanna and woodland reserves should be several thousand acres or larger. In all cases,
derivation of conservation goals should be made within a regional or landscape context.
Small nodes of fair quality savanna and woodland remnants are found within larger degraded woodlands. Small prairie remnants often are found near degraded woodlands. In designing woodland and savanna reserves, it is beneficial to select large tracts including these nodes, or to connect nodes through suitable corridors and linkages. Many species that once occupied savannas and woodlands are now restricted to areas at the edges of fields and in rights-of-way. By connecting such nodes, restoring site integrity and process regimes, notably reintroduction of a fire regime, and allowing time, organisms have an opportunity to move across the landscape and reconstitute the communities of which they were part. When connections are not feasible, clustering of preserves may serve to mitigate some effects of fragmentation, especially for highly vagile or dispersable taxa.
Preservation strategies for private lands include working with state/local governments to create incentives that establish reduced property tax rates for preserving natural areas of significant biodiversity. Changes in local zoning ordinances may be required in order to allow burning and other management activities.
In many cases, the most logical sites for restoration are degraded savannas on public lands acquired for conservation purposes. Savannas and open oak woodlands are prime recreational land. The mix of sun and shade, the handsome vistas, the close-up beauty of the grasses and flowers, the abundance of wildlife, including remarkable numbers of brightly colored birds and butterflies, would be quickly appreciated by the public. Unfortunately, most former savanna land in public ownership is now managed as if it were a prairie or forest.
In a large-scale restoration, public hunting may be a component of site restoration, and would serve to engender additional support. Some of potentially restorable sites are extensive. New ones with particular savanna restoration and game-habitat potential could be sought. Restoration in such areas might consist principally of spring burning, accompanied by introduction of native grassland plants, perhaps with particular emphasis on those that provide good food and cover for wildlife. Savannas represents optimal habitat for a number of the most popular game animals (deer, turkey, rabbit, squirrel, quail, dove, and others.)
Contemporary oak systems reflect the impacts of a century or more of post-European settlement disturbances. Restoration will in many cases be a slow process. While it is natural to want quick results, restoration and rehabilitative management must be undertaken with the knowledge that centuries of abuse can not be reversed overnight.
In order to assess the success of restoration and to obtain data to drive future management activity, some type of ecological monitoring is requisite. Monitoring protocols should be repeatable, efficient, and provide information of direct relevance in formulating management decisions. Use of fixed transects with nested plots to estimate vegetative cover is the most widely employed approach. To convey assurances that monitoring results actually reflect site improvement or degradation, ecological monitoring protocols should reflect inputs from as large a spectrum of the biota as possible, in some type of unified array. Abiotic criteria, such as water quality and quantity, are often a useful adjunct to organismally-based monitoring systems. Sophisticated monitoring may not be possible on all sites. It should occur on several sites throughout the savanna to represent savanna types. Simple monitoring techniques, such as taking photos annually at permanent photo points, can be low-tech, low-cost methods of achieving crude levels of monitoring.
Monitoring protocols that focus on species conservatism satisfy many of the requirements demanded of a pragmatic, management-based ecological monitoring program. One such system, devised by Gerould Wilhelm, is summarized in Swink and Wilhelm (1979).
Baseline assessments are an important tool for ecological monitoring, and serve as a reference point against which to assess the effectiveness of management treatments. Baseline data should be taken wherever possible, but restoration of degraded or critically threatened sites should not be held hostage to obtaining baseline data.
MONITORING
Information
Presently, numerous public and private agencies, organizations and institutions are conducting research and prescribing and implementing management to restore savanna and woodland natural communities. Often managers and researchers are not aware of databases of ongoing or recently completed research. One important challenge is to bring the vast amount of information contained in these databases together in a format that is accessible.
The following information is needed by managers:
- Classification and characterization of savannas and woodlands.
- Policies and regulations affecting restoration and management.
- Identify data gaps, targeted research needs, threats to the ecosystem.
- Demonstrations, of both successes and failures, illustrating techniques, examples of different types of savannas, and a range of fire regimes.
- Funding opportunities.
- Management guidelines
- Regional networks for land managers
- Clear, science-based ecological objectives
- desired conditions
- process requirements
- Inventories of what is protected
- species, communities
- site specifics, areas
- stewardship abstracts
- case histories and success stories
Information sources and database systems of use include:
- Aerial photos - to determine land use and land cover
- Land use maps and land use plans
- Public land survey notes - for pre-Euro-American settlement conditions
- Soils maps
- Hydrology maps
- Herbariums - Species locations, taxonomy, ecology
- Academic institutions - research
- Natural Heritage Program databases in state agencies - data on location and status of rare species and natural communities
- Biological and Conservation Data System of TNC and heritage programs - information on management of rare species and control of pest and exotic species, monitoring and research programs underway
- USEPA, USFS, NPS, USWFS, SCS, USGS - have many databases
- State resource management agencies - have several data systems containing natural resource information
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) - in Illinois alone, there are GIS's at the Natural History Survey, the Water Survey, the Department of Conservation, universities, Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, and undoubtedly others, all of which contain useful information on various aspects of natural resources.
- Natural areas managers and researchers.
- Professional journals.
- Formal and informal networks.
- Conferences, workshops.
- Volunteer groups.
Many diverse delivery systems can be used for distributing information:
- conservation organizations
- TNC science programs
- media
- volunteer programs
- Center for Oak Studies, U. of TN at Knoxville
- Office of Information Transfer (USFWS)
- networking
- conferences
- heritage programs
- journals/scientific publications/books
- electronic bulletin boards
- management plans
- USFWS "Econetwork"
- USEPA Region 5 Federal Agency Roundtable
Systems need to be developed or improved for relaying information among decison-makers. Systems include:
- mailing lists that include administrators and field people for clearinghouse materials
- communication strategies and outreach programs
- development of co-ownership projects
- lands
- multi-agency
- co-ownership promoting interdisciplinary cooperation and acceptance
- computer user guides, catalogues of info systems, how to use them, costs to use
- mechanisms to sythesize information, e.g., articles which synthesize and review basic research, have a place to put the info, and come one to review it
- information clearinghouse
- means for capturing and documenting experiences
- filing systems
- interviews
- training
- overlapping work and transition (retirees part-time) AARP/SEEP programs
- need new discussion forums
- integrated management and research projects - action teams, as well as teams which facilitate the delivery of information
- volunteer programs for each area
- using volunteers as sources and means of info delivery
- constituency groups
- funding forum
- advisory committees with technical, field or research responsibilities
- regular meetings
- feedback and advice to funding decision-makers
- consulting resources
- clinics to help volunteers learn techniques, species, and monitoring protocol
EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
Efforts toward preservation of biodiversity can be strengthened through public information/education on what savanna communities are, how rare they are, why they are important, and why they must be managed in order to be preserved. The development of information/outreach programs should also benefit efforts to gain support for preservation and restoration of savannas on private lands. Additional emphasis may be placed on acquisition of critical areas and/or protecting savanna communities to prevent further degradation.
Techniques and ideas for improving education include the following:
- Public outreach (including children) to get them involved in their landscape.
- Kids teaching kids
- Make "savanna" a household word
- Project WILD education unit on savannas
- Research old articles (newspapers, etc.). Get senior citizens and farmers to explain what they know, record "old days" knowledge.
- Have a "Savanna Day" open to public.
- Explain how savannas are not just in the Midwest, compare to Africa.
- Educational displays
- Plaques describing history, formation, management, use; educational displays, walking trails.
- Explain why restoration is going on.
- Utilize volunteer network.
- Obtain more volunteers, recruiting others besides known group.
- Get information to local public (schools, senior citizen groups)
- Get high schools and grade schools to have education programs: "adopt a savanna," seed banks.
- Involve private land owners, talk to them about gene pools and importance.
- Invite public to prescribed burn projects.
- Educate how burning is good.
- Educate how hydrologic regimes are important.
There is a definite need for education of public and private sectors in savanna restoration. The general public will need to be supportive of restoration of savannas for their ultimate success. Also, restoration managers need to be trained in proper management. A continuing education outreach to these managers will be needed to bridge the gap to science and technology.
VI. GOALS AND STRATEGIES
Goal 1. Obtain a broad consensus for implementation of the Ecosystems Recovery Plan.
- Agree upon the goals and objectives of this plan.
- Decide upon the structure of the entity which will make the ultimate determinations, guidelines, and judgments concerning projects.
- Determine how the plan will be implemented in relation to management structure, technical support, consulting needs, and fund acquisition and dispersal.
- Agree upon a time frame for the plan.
- Define the long and short-term goals of the plan.
Goal 2. Identify, evaluate, and integrate acquired oak savanna/woodland acreages.
- Agree upon benchmark descriptions of oak savanna/woodland including: structure, composition, dynamic processes, and other related elements.
- Complete regional mapping of oak savanna/woodland acreages.
- Measure each site's size in acres identifying small sites that could be consolidated into larger preserves.
- Identify each site's biota, edaphic and topographic moisture gradients, rare species occurrences, surrounding land use, hydrology, fire considerations, and ecosystem history. Complete gap analysis of sites.
- Determine a specific time frame for restoration goals.
- Rank each site for either restoration or preservation action according to quality, restoration potential, representation, or situation.
- When possible, consolidate small sites into larger preserves. Consolidate preserves into regions considering conservation options available within geologic, state, and local divisions.
Goal 3. Coordinate and integrate agencies, states, and people into functionally specific groups.
- Coordinate the conservation of oak savanna/woodland biodiversity with the conservation of other Midwest ecosystems.
- Establish a networked system of reserves that captures the full array of oak savanna/woodland species, communities, processes, and conserves viable populations of all plants and animals known to inhabit savannas and woodlands.
- Integrate local, state, and range-wide planning levels into reserve planning.
- Establish a network of pilot restoration projects with intensive monitoring to evaluate the efficacy of methods and to accumulate an experiential basis for predicting how remnants will react to treatment.
- Coordinate appropriate monitoring practices throughout the network.
- Create a site or reserve-specific "Recovery Team" to insure the implementation of the recovery plan.
- Create regional "Recovery Teams" and/or State Teams, which would consist of managers, scientists, technicians, and volunteers, who would be responsible for managing, researching, and disseminating information about their region's or state's projects.
- Establish networks of interested volunteers.
- Foster among scientists, the public, public and private national, state, regional, and local environmental and conservation agencies, a mutually supportive partnership to establish and maintain oak savanna/woodland ecosystem biodiversity.
Goal 4. Develop and assess restoration and protection technology.
- Identify the range of design considerations necessary to best preserve the function and biodiversity of reserve sites.
- Determine the acreage necessary for the permanent establishment of various indigenous taxa components of oak savanna/woodlands.
- Determine the necessary characteristics of buffer zones and corridors.
- Determine what other design characteristics must be considered for the conservation of biological diversity on savanna restoration sites.
- Determine which range designs are the most practical and effective.
- Research interrelations of vegetation structure and composition, fire regime, soils, and physideraphy at landscape level.
- Evaluate technology, researching physiological and ecological mechanisms of how the best available technology works.
- Determine other informational needs for conservation and restoration.
- Employ design criteria that best integrates savanna reserve networks with associated forest and prairie ecosystems.
- Re-create oak savannas/woodlands on new sites as both a research and conservation tool.
- Re-create on appropriate sites examples of oak savanna/woodland sub-types which are now rare or nonexistent.
- Re-establish important ecological process such as pollination, decomposition, and soil processes. Introduce propgules of a wide variety of species and reintroduce a natural disturbance regime.
- Tailor restoration efforts to local, site-specific conditions and implemented by including local biota, edaphic and topographic moisture gradients and ecosystem history.
- Monitor the success of the restoration over time.
- Ensure no additional loss of any species from the Midwest oak savanna/woodland complex.
Goal 5. Collect and disperse management strategies and other information.
- Initiate large-scale restoration work immediately.
- Bring the best available information and technology to the task of restoring and managing all protective remnants.
- Implement and evaluate a range of different management techniques including prescribed burns, brushing, seeding, species introduction, tree thinning, and employing a diversity of disturbance regimes of different intensity and frequency.
- Manage or restore all protected remnants using appropriate practices.
- Educate and train natural resource managers.
- Investigate the possibility of sustainable uses of oak savanna on private land.
- Establish appropriate savanna management on private land through the use of educational programs, printed information and guidelines, training in management techniques, and tax incentives.
- Consider a variety of protection techniques, including acquisition, easements, management agreements, tax incentives, management consulting, and apply these techniques on a wide range of sites of varying sizes.
- Incorporate the various management methods into management strategies.
- Develop a management handbook based on the best available technology which can be used to manage restoration projects.
- Determine the informational needs for conservation and restoration.
- Document strategies, techniques and monitoring of site restoration.
- Create Regional Teams in which a member or members would be responsible for publishing and distributing information concerning the region's projects and studies.
- Hold conferences to disseminate and evaluate information.
- Document and publish successful and unsuccessful restoration methods and share this information to increase the effectiveness of all collective efforts.
Goal 6. Educate and involve a diverse constituency.
- Conduct education and outreach programs in schools, organizations, business, and governments to teach them of the historical roles in which oak savannas/woodlands played, on the biological uniqueness of the ecosystems, and on the status and trends of the systems as a whole.
- Foster among the constituents a mutually supportive partnership to establish and maintain oak savanna/woodland ecosystem biodiversity.
- Educate the constituency to contribute the resources necessary to the ecosystem's survival.
- Promote public awareness and establish a sense of worth for oak savannas/woodlands in our regional culture.
- Enlist the private sector in protecting, restoring and even re-creating oak savannas/woodlands as an economically productive land use and/or aesthetic amenity on developed lands.
- Establish savanna projects in metropolitan areas that involve urban populations.
- Establish savanna projects in rural areas which involve and educate local residents and land owners on the uses and benefits of this ecosystem.
- Establish appropriate savanna management on private land through the use of educational programs, printed information and guidelines, training in management techniques, and tax incentives.
Goal 7. Obtain and coordinate additional land and funding sources.
- Bridge funds between private and public entities to help to ensure the success of projects.
- Foster inter-agency funding cooperation.
- Identify additional funding sources.
VII. RESEARCH PRIORITIES
The Research Working Group of the Midwest Environmental Roundtable's Interagency Cooperation on Ecosystem Management (ICEM) met on February 24, 1994 to consider recommended research questions that served efforts to restore oak savannas and woodlands. Working Group members were representatives from participating state and federal agencies. Individuals were selected, in part, because of their experience with savanna and woodland management.
These individuals were:
- Richard Whitman National Biological Survey, Coordinator
- Sybill Amelon U.S. Forest Service
- Paul Botts The Nature Conservancy
- Bill Franz Environmental Protection Fund, Region 5
- Fran Harty Illinois Department of Conservation
- Rich Henderson Wisconsin Department of Natural Res.
- Karen Holland Great Lakes National Program Office
- Ken McCarty Missouri Department of Natural Resources
- Noel Pavlovic National Biological Survey
- Larry Stritch U.S. Forest Service
- Ron Sundell Argonne National Laboratory
- Lisa Thomas National Park Service
The Working Group prioritized a list of research questions for restoration of Oak Savanna and Woodlands (Appendix E). Research questions were submitted from three different sources: a 'pre-conference draft', which was created for the attendees of the conference working sessions, the results of the conference working sessions and, finally, suggestions submitted by Recovery Plan Section Editors.
Most research questions were left unedited for the purposes of this exercise. Modification of some questions was made for 1) clarification, 2) minimizing redundancy, 3) separation of compound/multiple research inquiries into separate statements. Some questions were deleted because the Group felt a valid scientific hypothesis could not easily be derived from the original submitted statement. A limited number of additional questions were added by the Group after noting gaps in research left by submitted questions. The Group did not substantially change the majority of originally submitted questions.
Submitted research questions were first categorized along a two dimensional matrix. The horizontal dimension consisted of descending hierarchical ecological compartments: Landscape, Ecosystem, Communities, Populations, Species, Genes. The vertical dimension consisted of questions which seem to naturally fall into the following categories: Ecological Structure, Ecological Function, Restoration, Management, Classification, Abiotic, Fire. Cross tabulations down rows and columns thus allowed for summary of suggested research topics.
The Working Groups found that absolute categorization of Research Questions was often difficult and sometimes arbitrary. Often questions fit into several categories cutting across functional, disciplinary and ecological units. In other cases, the categorization of the question was dependent on the Groups immediate interpretation of what the author's meaning in framing the original question. Particularly difficult was separation of population, species and genetics type questions; between ecosystems and communities units, and between restoration and management categories.
The nature of submitted research questions by ecological unit can likely be explained to some degree by the academic backgrounds of the scientist presenting the inquires. From this premise, it follows that pre- and post-conference participants tended to orient more towards organismal biology, with relatively fewer geneticists, and ecosystem and landscape ecologists represented. For convenience, we are using the term 'organismal' to represent the community, population and species array in our ecological unit matrix. The Working Group commented that similar questions might have been framed in different disciplinary terms or approaches if participants represented wider biological backgrounds. Thus, the paucity of landscape, ecosystem and genetics type questions did not reflect a lack of importance of these subjects relative to restoration of savannas and woodlands. To the contrary, the lack of questions in these areas highlights the greater need for more research along these disciplinary lines and the need to attack more researchers with related training and interest. This is especially true of genetics and systems (ecosystem and landscape ecology) type research. If this survey reflects the true balance of current research in the area of savanna restoration (we suspect that it does), the Working Group recommends increasing emphasis in these disciplinary approaches. We can not adequately address the long-term restoration of savannas only in the context of organismal biology, while ignoring the physico-chemical, environmental, genetic, and landscape nature, influence and interactions on these complex ecosystems.
The submitted questions emphasize the importance of our understanding of organisms occurring in woodlands and oak savannas, especially of the demography, species composition, distribution, interaction, co-action, dispersal characteristics, interdependence. Research questions commonly emphasized spatial-temporal distributional questions at a variety of scales: microhabitat-ecosystem-landscape-biomes; seasonal-successional-geological. It is imperative that we understand the immediate and long-term implications of management actions. This understanding should go beyond the targeted individual organisms or communities and extend to contiguous or nested communities (e.g. ponds, streams, soil arthropods, migrating species). While an autoecological understanding or targeted species is pre-requisite to the organism's recovery, managing that species at the exclusion of the residual ecosystem/landscape is myopic and ill advised. Spatial limitations and possibilities must be clearly understood both within and between patches, at a fine and coarse grain level. This understanding needs to be extended beyond the biological and include biogeochemical fluxes, fire, edaphic, atmospheric, hydrologic influences.
Structural, functional and management oriented topics were most common, when categorized along topical line as outlined in the vertical axis of the above cross-tabulation. In order of frequency, restoration, fire, abiotic/edaphic, and classification type questions followed in the number of research questions submitted. The high frequency of structural and functional question is not surprising since most research questions can easily be categorize as one or a combination of these two biological approaches. It might be argued that this was an important artifact and elimination of these categories might have further clarified the relative emphasis in residual categories. Likewise, we could argue that none of the categories were exclusive and many problem statements would have overlapping elements. For instance, the subject ' restoration of savanna/woodlands by use of fire' would simultaneously have structural, functional, restoration, management, abiotic/edaphic and, of course, fire components. The subject would also cut across all ecological units considered in our matrix, depending on the framing of the research problem statement or hypothesis.
The Work Group noted the few questions relating to classification issues and abiotic factors were present. The latter omission is not so much related to its lack of importance, but rather the lack of chemists, physical scientists, geologists, soil scientists present at the referenced meetings versus the stronger representation by organismal biologists. Again, the omission of abiotic components of the subject ecosystems highlights the great need for geophysico-chemical researches and the need to attract trained scientist to these inquiries relating to these units of the ecosystem. Classification questions were also relatively less frequently submitted. On the contrary, good science follows from systematic understanding of the role, function and relative position of the subject matter in relation to other natural features and interactive elements. More likely the paucity of questions may be due to the fact that: classification questions can be reduced to a few well balanced questions, classification questions are often not perceived by the non-scientist as stereotypic 'research questions', even scientist do not always see the management/restoration implication of community taxonomic questions. The true explanation for the lack of questions is secondary to the need to have classification questions resolved. These questions are central to the target restoration goal and the management process in achieving these goals. In other words, we can not hope to achieve the goal, if we do not clearly understand and communicate the restoration endpoint and how to get there.
Savanna Ecosystem Research
Poorly represented in the research questions compiled for the Savanna Ecosystem Recovery Plan are research investigations focusing on ecosystem ecology. For example, little is known about how fire influences biogeochemical cycling in savannas and how fire and nutrients interact to influence community successional rates. This type of research would be relevant to the question of whether savanna sustain long term harvest of oak biomass and what influence does this have on savanna dynamics. Understanding the pathways, pools and fluxes of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous and other chemicals would be important in addressing the impacts of nutrient enrichment and toxic chemicals from air pollution on savanna dynamics. More research is needed in the pattern and process of savanna populations and communities and landscape dynamics.
Modeling
No projects incorporate modeling in the recovery of savanna ecosystems. For example, successional models could be developed incorporating fire effects on vegetation and animals to address concerns of species viability and landscape dynamics. In this regard landscape models could be developed to investigate the role of nature preserve design on ecosystem dynamics and immigration and emigration on rare species.
Genetics
Few genetics projects were identified in the draft ecosystem recovery plan; however, there are several avenues of genetics research that would be important in restoring savanna ecosystems. Little is known about the impacts of past management and the increasingly fragmented landscapes on the genetics and viability of savanna organisms. Are primarily outcrossing or outbreeding populations of plants and animals showing effects of inbreeding in remnant populations? If so how could these negative effects be ameliorated? In rehabilitating damaged savanna ecosystems, how much attention must be paid to genetic diversity in developing stock for transplanting or translocating? Rare species and largely outcrossing species would be likely to be the primary focus of research. If many of the species are peripheral in their range in the Midwest, how important are these populations in preserving species wide genetic diversity? What is the likelihood of outbreeding depression when reintroducing mixed stock into savanna rehabilitation? The model tool box of the population geneticist should play an integral role in guiding savanna ecosystem restoration through active research.
Non-indigenous and pathogenic organisms
Exotic plants, animals and pathogens are playing a significant role in altering the biodiversity of North America. Once exotics become naturalized they profoundly affect the landscape as witnessed by the gypsy moth and chestnut blights. Exotics may disrupt ecosystems functioning. For instance, grass carp and zebra mussels have fundamental change system dynamics of respectively impacted aquatic habitats. Non-native species introductions have changed community structure and species compositions as well. Introduction of fire and leafy spurge have significantly shifted species composition, feral animals such as goats, pigs have altered community structure. Often native species are outcompeted or crowded out by newly introduced species (e.g. purple loosestrife, starlings), sometimes native gene pools are depleted by hybridization with exotic species (Viburnum opulus vs. V. trilobum, Celastrus orbculatus vs. C. scandens).
Moreover, once an exotic becomes naturalized and spreads throughout a system, its removal is currently very difficult. Oak dominated savannas, prairie groves, and woodlands require periodic disturbance to perpetuate an oak canopy. Because these communities are disturbance dependent they may be more susceptible to invasion by exotic species. For example, exotic species of shrubs and vines are now being identified as serious competitors to oak re-vegetation in the Appalachians.
Selected Topics HOLES, SPECIAL EMPHASIS
High Priority Questions
Ecosystem Dynamics -- Organizing Forces
- How have climate changes influenced the distribution of prairie, savanna, and woodland across the midwestern landscape over the last 12,000 years? What changes in distribution may be expected to occur in response to CO2-induced warming?
- How have Native American demographic shifts or cultural developments over the last 12,000 years altered the pervasiveness of aboriginal burning of savanna ecosystems?
Landscape Ecology -- Spatial pattern
Savannas are often found in a mosaic of communities including prairies, wetlands, forests and glades. How much of the diversity of these areas is related to patch structure? Which species might be dependent upon a heterogeneous arrangement of patch types? How do savanna restoration and management methods impact the spatial arrangement of community types, and the within- and between-patch diversity?
Restoration and Management
Whenever possible, savanna restoration and management should be modeled after existing, local savannas that are similar in topography, substrate and soils, to the area requiring restoration. On a local scale, what is the composition of savanna communities? What were the historical seasonality and site-specific return intervals of natural and anthropogenic fires?
Composite of side-effects question and #36.
One savanna management regime may favor certain types or guilds of species, while a different course of action may promote others. How do different management approaches influence overall species diversity? Are the goals of maximizing biodiversity, and preserving conservative taxa associated with oak savannas and woodlands, compatible? In a related issue, restoration and management actions are usually aimed at changing the composition and dominance within the vascular plant component of the community. We know little about the non-target impacts, or side-effects, of different management regimes upon non-vascular plants, soil organisms, insects, birds, etc. Neither do we know the consequences of a no-management option for these components of oak communities.
VIII. ROLES AND ACTIONS
INTRODUCTION
There are many government agencies, non-governmental organizations, businesses and individuals working to preserve, protect, and restore oak savanna and woodlands in the Midwest. It is important therefore to identify and integrate the current roles and priorities of the various agencies, organizations, and other parties, to encourage the most efficient use of scarce resources.
NECESSARY ROLES
The following organizational roles have been identified as necessary for the protection and restoration of the Midwest oak savanna and woodland ecosystems.
- RESEARCH -- Requires scientific expertise using analytical techniques, contact with others in the field, ability to design and carry out studies with credibility and dissemination of information to others.
- SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATION -- Undertake an inventory of ecological research in the Midwest relative to oak savanna and other terrestrial ecosystems. Applying research findings and other data to program components (i.e., protection, management, etc.
- DATA MANAGEMENT -- Requires equipment and special expertise, understanding of what is necessary and practical, a helpful attitude and commitment to sharing data.
- INVENTORY -- Compile definition, quality standards, search techniques, and field evaluation techniques for oak savanna inventory. Include means of identifying and evaluating non-savanna communities that are adjacent to savannas, and a means of assessing savanna restoration potential as well. Classification and priority ranking is a needed adjunct activity.
- MAPPING AND GIS SERVICES -- Requires special equipment and expertise. Value will depend on amount and quality of ground truth, which can and should be tied to inventory process. Includes the ability to deliver the information to those who make decisions.
- RESERVE DESIGN -- Choosing boundaries and protection strategies. Requires a combination of expertise, applied science, art and politics.
- LAND ACQUISITION AND PROTECTION -- Requires real estate expertise, money, and flexibility to respond to opportunities.
- LAND OWNERSHIP -- Requires permanence or assured transfer of both ownership and land management objective; willingness to hold and care for the land and meet ongoing expenses.
- MANAGEMENT PLANNING -- Involves applying research results and ecological knowledge to lay out a course of action (that others may carry out). Expertise is rooted in practical thinking.
- MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION -- The ability to apply human resources, paid or volunteer, to carry out the many tasks associated with all aspects of savanna protection, restoration, and stewardship.
- EDUCATION AND OUTREACH -- Develop means to interpret/educate the public regarding savanna ecology and the importance of the ecosystem, how it fits in to the landscape.
- TRAINING -- May be needed in areas of inventory, management, data.
- INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE -- To disseminate information among interested parties regarding research and management.
- INTERAGENCY COORDINATION -- Sharing of people resources between agencies. Mission statements should reflect cooperation with other agencies, standards and guidelines. Signed memorandums of understanding are recommended.
ORGANIZATIONS
The descriptions of oak savanna-related work underway or proposed by federal and state agencies were submitted by staff at those agencies. This should not be taken as a comprehensive, exhaustive list of agency action on behalf of oak savanna restoration; undoubtedly, other efforts underway or in the planning stages did not make it into this draft of the Recovery Plan. Nor should discussion of future directions contemplated by federal and state agencies be read as official proposals endorsed by the heads of those agencies; inspired in part by the 1993 Oak Savanna conference and the Ecosystems Recovery Plan, many agencies are in the process of evaluating their present and future directions in oak savanna management and restoration.
Federal Agencies
The National Park Service
Park Service staffers have been active supporters of and participants in the regional
effort which has led to the development of the Oak Ecosystems Recovery Plan. In a letter
addressed to the members of the coordinating team, Park Service regional director Don
Castleberry expressed his support for the effort:
"We have an interest in participating in this ecosystem approach and feel we can contribute through the lessons we have learned by providing the expertise of our staff and field laboratories and will seek ways to support the effort financially."
Savanna Resources and Current Management
The National Park Service (NPS) manages oak savanna and woodlands across a range of sites
that extend from St. Croix National Scenic Riverway in Minnesota and Wisconsin, to the Big
Thicket in southeastern Texas.
The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore includes more than 3,600 acres of black oak savanna, scrub and woodland. Staff efforts are focusing on an experimental, ecosystem approach to savanna restoration and management. A ten-year study of hydrologic and prescribed fire effects on vegetation includes a continuum of wetland, mesic prairie and savanna sites. Savanna research includes reconstruction of fire histories, documentation of fire effects on vegetation, rates of successional change, black oak stem demography, assessing possible alleopathic effects of black locust, and ecological and demographic research of the rare savanna species. Current management includes restoring savanna species to razed homesites, and reintroducing prescribed fire to prairie and savanna ecosystems.
Oak savanna and woodlands formed part of the historical scene for several small midwestern NPS units. A predominantly presettlement savanna landscape was the backdrop for an important Civil War battle at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield in southwestern Missouri. While intense agricultural use after the Civil War altered most of that landscape, savanna remnants can still befound on the steeper slopes and adjacent to limestone glades. The park has a long-range goal of restoring 1,000 acres to savanna, and has just completed three years of intensive restoration and monitoring.
Recent evidence from Iowa suggests that savanna may have dominated the landscape at Effigy Mounds National Monument during the mound-building era (1500 to 700 BP). Today, mature oak-hickory forests predominate. Restoration efforts so far have focused on converting old fields to native grasses and forbs, and burning goat prairies along the bluff tops. The park needs additional research regarding the vegetation during the mound-building era, in order to set restoration goals for restoring the historic scene.
Two parks in the Ozarks of Arkansas and Missouri, Buffalo National River (94,000 acres) and Ozark National Scenic Riverway (80,000 acres), support a landscape mosaic of high-quality glade, savanna and woodland communities. They are large parks that are bordered by other federal, state, and TNC holdings. A nomination is currently in preparation to include them as a biosphere reserve under the United Nations, Man in the Biosphere program. Together, these characteristics make Buffalo National Riverway and Ozarks National Scenic Riverway an ideal proving ground for two mission of the oak savanna ecosystem recovery effort; 1) true ecosystem management on a landscape scale, 2) interagency cooperation to achieve recovery goals.
Future Directions for Savanna Ecosystem Recovery
The most valuable assets that the NPS can bring to this recovery effort are the oak
savannas and woodlands under our stewardship. These resources can serve as benchmarks to
compare restoration and management elsewhere, and as repositories of genetic species, and
community diversity. Beyond this, there are four areas in which the NPS can both
contribute to, and benefit from interagency cooperation.
Research
Through partnerships with the new National Biological Survey (NBS), research institutions,
and other agencies, the NPS will continue the experimental, ecosystem-based approach to
savanna management that is so well exemplified at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Modeling savanna restoration on natural systems, and building prescribed fire programs on
a thorough understanding of historical fire regimes, are two central issues. One specific
opportunity to include savanna ecosystems in an established research program is the Ozark
Highlands Global Change Program that is ongoing at Buffalo National River and Ozark
National Scenic Riverway.
Pilot Projects
NPS savanna and woodland sites requiring restoration could be used as pilot projects to
develop restoration techniques, monitoring programs and standards for measuring success.
NPS and other land managers could cooperate at a sub-regional level to develop restoration
models based on local community types, and to develop seed sources from local genotypes.
NPS and the Soil Conservation Service are currently working together on a number of
projects to develop local plant materials for NPS use.
Cooperative Consultation and Training
The NPS is committed to providing resource management personnel with opportunities for
specialized training and access to advanced educational programs. Joint training courses,
exchange programs, and greater interagency consultation would benefit the NPS, as well as
other land managers.
Public Education
The NPS has both a well-established interpretative and educational infrastructure, and a
broad-based audience. Cooperative development of educational materials would result in
greater public understanding of oak savannas and ecosystem-based preservation and
management.
The U.S. Department of the Army
The Legacy Program
The Legacy Resource Management Program (LRMP) was established in Fiscal Year 1991 to
promote, manage, research, conserve, and restore the natural and cultural resources on the
Department of Defense's 25 million acres of land. It uses as its basic mandate the nine
Congressional purposes of the initial FY 91 legislation establishing the program. In the
natural resources area, a common theme is the conservation of biological resources through
inventory of military lands, and the establishment of programs for ecosystem management
and the conservation biological diversity. To date, hundreds of individual projects have
been funded on individual military installations, and a number of major study projects
(task areas) have been funded to examine broad issues for the improvement of natural and
cultural resources management within the Department of defense.
Regional Projects
Consistent with Legacy's mandate to enhance ecosystem management and conserve biological
diversity, several regional projects have been funded to date. One regional study in
Wisconsin is being developed by the Sand County Foundation, but the eventual scope of this
project is not known yet. Legacy has also been a sponsor of the Gap Analysis program and
is participating with The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife on developing
ecosystem management and biodiversity enhancement strategies for the Department of
Defense.
USDA Forest Service
Forest Service staffers have been active participants in the efforts to develop the
Ecosystems Recovery Plan. The Forest Service has entered into a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County Illinois, the state of
Illinois, and The Nature Conservancy to fund and support work including demonstration
projects at important oak savanna sites in the Cook County Forest Preserves. The Forest
Service conducts management and research projects at oak savanna and woodland sites in
national forests across the region.
The North Central Forest Experiment Station unit at Columbia, Missouri, is studying the regeneration and management of upland central hardwood forests. While most of the research concerns forests other than oak savanna, some related activities do occur. A paper prepared by Paul Johnson and Jay Law for the Oak savanna Conference provides guidelines for managers based on the stocking chart concept. This information has now been developed into a manuscript for the Northern Journal of Applied Forestry.
The Columbia unit has funded a small cooperative study at the University of Missouri on inventory and classification of savannas. The unit has also supported a small study related to Bachman's sparrow, principally a glade species which is apparently considered endangered by the state of Missouri. The Station has developed a proposal to initiate new research related to upland forest glades, barrens, and savannas. However, initiation of this research is contingent on obtaining new funding.
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Fish and Wildlife staffers have been active supporters of and participants in the regional
effort which has led to the development of the Oak Ecosystems Recovery Plan.
Six national wildlife refuges in the Region are known to have remnant oak savannah habitat, with restoration efforts either underway or in the planning stages at four of them. The biggest hurdle that we have is one of insufficient resources (dollars and staff) to meet our needs.
Crane Meadows NWR is a planned 13,540-acre refuge located approximately 5 miles southeast of Little Falls, Minnesota.
Remnant communities of sand prairie and oak savanna, very rare communities in Minnesota, are scattered throughout the area. Although often altered by past cultivation or grazing, these areas contain native sand prairie species including the grasses big bluestem, Indian grass, little bluestem, porcupine grass, and June grass. Common native forbs include hoary puccoon, prairie violet, rough blazing star, prairie larkspur, health aster, black-eyed Susan, stiff golden rod, lead plant, and purple prairie clover.
Necedah NWR is located in central Wisconsin in an area known as the Great Central Wisconsin Swamp. The refuge is 43,656 acres, acquired during the mid 1930s as local farms were abandoned.
Within the refuge is a total of 1,170 acres of oak barrens in 12 areas, of which 9 are currently being maintained as barrens through prescribed burning. Prescribed fire will be the primary management tool on the barrens in the future. Fire will be used to control oak succession and also to add diversity to the herbaceous plant community.
An additional 20,000 acres of the refuge consists of degraded barrens habitat. With the exclusion of fire, most of the refuge's barrens have matured into closed canopy forests which lack diversity in the herbaceous layer and have virtually no shrub component. Accordingly, these areas get very little use by songbirds. To increase the diversity of the refuge and provide habitat for endangered species, the refuge has made plans to restore the degraded barrens. This will be done with timber sales, shearing, and prescribed fire.
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Anoka Sand Plain within Sherburne County, Minnesota. The refuge includes 30,479 acres and lies primarily on a Zimmerman-Lino-Isanti peat soil association; soils are deeply leached or slightly acidic, sandy, and susceptible to erosion. The landscape is flat to gently rolling. The refuge was established in 1965.
The areas of the Sherburne NWR designated as oak savanna areas included remnant oak savanna as well as existing grasslands and woodland areas which are being managed to restore them to oak savanna. Management strategies include the use of prescribed burning, selective tree removal, and seeding of native grasses and forbs.
The Santiago Oak Savanna Research Natural Area (RNA) is 496 acres in size, and was established in 1978 through cooperative efforts with The Nature Conservancy. It is remnant oak savanna habitat consisting of mixed burr and northern pin oak with a prairie understory on sandy substrate. It is managed primarily with prescribed fire. Additional patches of remnant oak savanna exist on the refuge in smaller, non-contiguous blocks. Combined, remnant oak savanna comprises approximately 1,000 acres of habitat on the refuge.
An additional 4,000 acres (approximately) of refuge habitat currently consisting of degraded grasslands or woodlands are being managed to restore them to oak savanna. These acres are found within a 13,256-acre block known as the Oak Savanna Management Area, which also includes a variety of restored wetlands and river bottomlands.
Walnut Creek National Wildlife Refuge is an 8,654-acre refuge located near Prairie City, Iowa, It was established in 1991, and is a model refuge for prairie and savanna restoration within the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The goal at Walnut Creek NWR is to restore the landscape as nearly as possible to the natural condition that existed prior to Euro-American settlement. Based on historical records, the northern half of the refuge was dominated by prairie, and the southern half was a mosaic of prairie, savanna and sedge meadow. Remnant natural communities exist throughout the refuge, though most of the land is currently used for crop or livestock production. As such, large-scale efforts will be focused both on restoring the quality of existing natural community remnants, and on reconstructing natural communities "from scratch" in such places as corn fields.
Savanna remnants are mesic to wet-mesic sites existing on hilly terrain typical of the Southern Iowa Drift Plain. A remnant herbaceous savanna understory exists in degraded condition under a canopy of burr oaks and several other woody species that have formed a dense canopy due to fire suppression. Management of these areas will include selective species of plants and animals obtained from a 38 county local ecotype range (except when local ecotype is not possible such as is the case with bison and elk). Existing savannas will be expanded or established where it is likely that savannas existed historically.
Public participation via volunteer efforts and student involvement is critical to the success of ecological restoration at Walnut Creek NWR. In some cases, attention to off-site natural community remnants as Walnut Creek NWR seed collection sites has resulted in improved management by landowners or by volunteers offering stewardship assistance to landowners. As such, the refuge is positively influencing natural areas preservation beyond refuge boundaries.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The USEPA was a co-sponsor of the Midwest Oak Savanna Conference in Chicago in February,
and has been a key partner in the followup efforts including further development of the
Recovery Plan. The USEPA is also currently developing a plan to use satellite imaging to
map oak savanna and woodland communities across the region.
The USEPA is co-sponsoring the next two planned regional followup conferences on oak savanna restoration and management: with the Illinois Department of Conservation scheduled for October 1994, and with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources tentatively scheduled for fall 1995.
STATE AGENCIES
Illinois Department of Conservation
The Funk's Grove site in McLean County was one of the first locations where savanna
restoration was implemented. Historical records indicated that the periphery of this
historic site was a savanna community. Approximately 10 years ago, both trees and
herbaceous prairie plants were planted to begin this project. Some of the trees that were
planted were burr oak, white oak, black oak, black cherry, black walnut, shagbark hickory,
and white ash. The prairie component of this restoration included big bluestem, Indian
grass, prairie blazing star, New England aster, rattlesnake master, rough blazing star,
compass plant, and prairie dock. The trees are doing very well, and many of them are close
to 20 feet in height. The herbaceous prairie materials are not doing as well due to the
competition of the large grasses. Efforts are currently being made to increase the
diversity of the prairie wildflowers within the savanna area.
Most of the best savanna vegetation in Illinois exists in the sand areas along the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers. Fire is used by the Division of Natural Heritage to manage these sites. A recent emphasis has been the use of prescribed fire during the autumn for the control of invading woody vegetation. An 800-acre complex of sand prairie, savanna, and forest was burned in the fall of 1992. In previous years prescribed burns were conducted at the McKee Creek and Argyle Lake barrens with very positive results, including the germination of the seeds of endangered plants, such as buffalo clover, which had previously been found in very small numbers at this site.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources
The Division of Nature Preserves (DNP) of the Department of Natural Resources is involved
with most aspects of savanna conservation. The DNP has undertaken a statewide
county-by-county natural areas inventory to locate remaining high-quality natural areas. A
supplemental, more thorough inventory was undertaken for both sand savannas and silt loam
savannas, using rare species, soil maps, aerial photographs, and finally ground checking
to locate and catalog remaining savanna which should be protected. Potential savannas of
at least 100 acres were scrutinized to determine which had the most potential for
recovery. Landowners of identified target sites were contacted via the Indiana Natural
Areas Registry Program, and preserve design maps were developed for all sites targeted for
protection.
The DNP acquires savannas as they become available, and pursues nature preserve dedication for appropriate sites owned by other agencies and organizations. The DNP manages and monitors a number of savanna sites, and assists other owners. Funding for acquisition continues to be available through several programs, and new renewable funding is becoming available through the Indiana Heritage Trust's environmental auto license plate.
Thus far, the DNP has identified two silt loam savannas. One has been acquired and is being managed as a nature preserve, and the other will be acquired by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. A number of large sand savanna remnants remain in Indiana, some of them of high quality and/or recoverable. Quite a few of these are in public ownership, and most are protected and managed as natural areas. Some of these large remnants are located at the National Lakeshore, Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area (FWA), Jasper-Pulaski FWA, Winnamac FWA, Tippecanoe River State Park, and Indiana Dunes State Park. Sand savannas are protected at 13 dedicated nature preserves, totaling 3,845 acres. These sites are managed by periodic burning and exotic control, and are continually monitored. Restoration efforts are underway at in holdings at a number of these sites. Acquisition targets includes a number of large savanna remnants, and possible partners include The Nature Conservancy and local park boards.
Future actions planned by the DNP include a large ecosystem protection effort in northwest Indiana, with possible partners including the Illinois Department of Conservation, several divisions within the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and The Nature Conservancy. This project will entail a highly developed inventory, development of preserve design maps, landowner contact, acquisition, and restoration.
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Our present approach to savanna management is to work with eight sites scattered across
the state and observe their responses to burning, in some cases supplemented with clearing
of woody understory. Low-intensity monitoring (periodic visual observation, permanent
photo-stations, and small-quadrant presence/absence sampling) will hopefully provide us
with information about the outcome of management on these small "demonstration
areas" that will impinge on a future decision on whether to expand our efforts to
more and larger areas.
Most of the sites below fit best into the "woodland" concept of the savanna continuum because most have a well-developed tree canopy and have a mixed forest-prairie flora or a prairie-forest spatial mosaic.
Dolliver State Park, Webster County
A narrow band of rocky ridgetop dominated by white oak with some scattered individual
trees more than 200 years old. This is DNR's smallest (0.25 acre) study site, initially
cleared in 1988 and subjected to two spring burns to date.
Brushy Creek State Preserve, Webster County
A mesic demonstration area, approximately 5 acres of steep, southeast-facing woods
dominated by red oak. Burned twice since 1988.
Lake Ahquabi State Park, Warren County
A gentle, west-facing, disturbed, 2-acre slope dominated by young burr oak. Outside edges
of this stand harbor prairie species, but the interior is dominated by a variety of forest
species. The site burned well in November 1990, but all subsequent fall attempts have been
thwarted by damp conditions. However, the first burn top-killed 100% of the shrub/sapling
understory and stimulated general increase of herb cover.
Blackbone State Park, Delaware County
A gentle, south-facing, 1-acre slope dominated by large, 200-year old white oaks with
grove of large white pine in an extensively forested landscape. A dense layer of ironwood
was cleared away. Effects of clearing and fall burning in 1990 have been increases in Carex pensylvanica and Danthonia spicata. Recruitment of new white oak and white pine
seedlings is also evident.
Preparation Canyon State Park, Morona County
A west-facing, 3-acre grove of burr oak in the midst of a high-quality dry prairie
landscape in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. A very hot fire in fall of 1990 top-killed
100% of the woody understory. Results include increases in Elymus villosus, Eupatorium
rugosum, and Triosetum sp. Fire caused some weedy herb invasion around edges of stand;
also stimulated vigor of a leafy spurge during the first post-burn growing season.
Nine Eagles State Park, Decatur County
The DNR's largest demonstration site to date at 50 acres. The site is a mosaic of young,
disturbed woodlands dominated by shingle oak and brushy prairie openings dominated by big
bluestem and dogwood. It was burned in the spring of 1992.
Catfish Creek State Preserve, Mines of Spain Recreation Area,
Dubuque County
A 5-acre complex of dry oak-hickory forest and prairie openings on steep, rocky,
south-facing hillside. Subjected to several spring burns of various sizes since 1990 plus
some manual clearing around prairie sites. Largest, most effective burn in April 1992.
Stone State Park, Plymouth/Woodbury County
Burns centered on extensive prairie slopes and ridges have been allowed to burn as far as
possible into adjacent burr oak woods, but only one fire to date has successfully burned
extensively in wooded portion; others limited to edges by damp leaf litter.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
The 50,000-acre Allegan State Game Area contains the largest significant and manageable
tract of oak savanna in southern Michigan, the area that was the most extensive original
home to this community in the state. The Game Area receives heavy public use, and so it is
important to balance the area's diverse ecological communities and the recreation that
they support.
Game Area staff have drafted an integrated ecosystem management approach, of which oak savanna restoration and management is a significant part. The Midwest Oak Ecosystems Recovery Plan may offer guidance to the final draft of the Game Area management plan.
Annual prescribed burning of the oak savanna in the Game Area proceeds as best it can in an area with few DNR staff; financial and staff assistance from other organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory are important to the effort.
Shakey Lakes, a proposed State Natural Area on state forest land in the extreme northern part of the oak savanna range, is the focus of special state management planning. Parts of the proposed SNA have been cut and burned with an eye toward oak savanna restoration and maintenance, and research including monitoring vegetative response to treatments is being conducted by Alan Haney.
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Missouri's state park system includes more than 120,000 acres at 78 sites. Most of this
land is undeveloped, and was predominantly savanna and woodland at the time of European
settlement. Good quality, restorable remnants abound.
The mission of the state park system calls for preservation and interpretation of the state's outstanding natural features. Accordingly, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) began restoring savanna and oak woodland ecosystems in 1983. By 1993, the initial two thousand acres of clearing and prescribed burns in four wastern Ozark state parks had grown into a 16,000-acre, 23-park commitment. A $150,000 annual budget for equipment and temporary labor supplements efforts of our full time professional staff to further expand the restoration program.
Along with restoration work, the MDNR also is engaged in research, monitoring and experimentation with regards to its savanna preservation efforts. Utilizing the high-quality remnants under its ownership, and the many different types of restoration on various types and qualities of savanna underway in state parks, we are seeking new knowledge concerning the significance of restoring savanna, and the techniques for doing so. There are now several good quality examples of savanna and woodland landscapes which are also beginning to provide fertile ground for the research community.
On the interpretive side, ten years of restoration has currently yielded 23 state parks with public savanna demonstration sites. Savannas are the principle exhibit theme at one of our state park visitors centers, and will be at a second one now being designed. Three self-guided savanna interpretive trails exist; hiking trails lead through several more; and park naturalists regularly lead visitors on interpretive walks through these various examples of native Missouri savanna. The MDNR also frequently hosts tours and management workshops for other agencies or committees, such as the regional savanna conference planned for fall of 1995.
The MDNR continues to add savanna landscapes to the system. Two new state parks recently several thousand acres of remnant and restorable savanna and woodlands to Missouri's parks. These lands have all been designated for preservation, and management has begun. Several important inholding acquisitions for existing savanna parks have also recently come through. Several of these are further protected within the boundaries of state-designated natural areas, and one, Turkey Pen Hollow Natural Area, recently became Missouri's first such to recognize a savanna landscape as a principle landscape feature.
The state park system's land management philosophy is ecosystem and process oriented, and backed by administrative mission, policy and financial support. Altogether, 62,000 acres have been administratively designated for ecological management, and several sites are nominees for large, landscape-scale Missouri Natural Areas.
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
The state manages a number of high-quality oak savannas, most of them either sand-gravel
or barrens subtype sites. Techniques employed by the MDNR include prescribed burning,
cutting, manual removal, and chemical treatment of invasive plant species.
A total of 12 high-quality (ranked A to BC in the state Heritage database) sites are managed by MDNR programs. Five sites are managed as part of state Wildlife Management Areas; four are managed as part of the State Natural Areas program; one is managed jointly with The Nature Conservancy; and two are managed by the MDNR Forestry Division. The largest of these is 200 acres.
Missouri Department of Conservation
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDOC) owns and manages several hundred thousand
acres, and also supports and coordinates management by private landowners. Savanna and
woodland sites are found throughout the state, particularly south of the Missouri River.
The MDOC is now undergoing a comprehensive regional planning effort for each of the 19 "Natural Sections" into which it divides the state. As the department's land base and private land programs have expanded significantly over the past 15 years, area plans have continued to be developed one at a time without sufficient regard for adjacent ownerships and private land opportunities. The time has come, state officials have decided, to coordinate management of resources on a regional basis; the MDOC's commitment to protecting Missouri's biological diversity requires planning on a regional scale.
The regional plans now being developed for each of the 19 sections will be the product of a five-step process. The process includes collecting historic and present information on fish, forest and wildlife resources, including long-range projections of recreational and resource trends and demands; identifying critical natural communities, habitats, recreational opportunities and natural resource commodities needing management emphasis; proposing objectives for the amount of public and private land needed to provide for critical natural communities, habitats and commodities; identifying specific public and private lands that should be managed to meet the regional objectives; and developing the regional plan.
The first regional plan to be drafted, for the Grand River Section of the Glaciated Plains Natural Division, is expected to be finalized by the end of 1993. Other regional plans are expected in 1994 and 1995.
Savanna restoration and management has become a priority for MDOC planning and management activities. The department's Planning Division issued in December 1992 interim management guidelines for the selection and management of glades and savannas in Missouri. One product of the regional planning process will be information and proposed strategies for the acquisition and protection of savanna sites; the draft Grand River Section plan, for example, proposes the creation of one or more areas with a minimum 1,500-acre mosaic of prairie, savanna and forest natural communities, and at least one such area between 500 and 1,500 acres, and identifies potential candidate sites. The draft plan also identifies potential savanna restoration sites within the Grand River Section, including privately held tracts representing potential opportunities for public-private partnerships.
Ohio Department of Natural Resources
In Ohio, oak savannas fall into three major categories: savannas of the tall grass prairie
region, savannas of the Oak Openings and barrens, and savannas of the dolomitic cedar
barrens.
Classic oak savanna communities dominated by burr oak, white oak and hickory still occur as isolated islands on what was formerly tall grass prairie on the Till Plains of central and west central Ohio. These oak savannas are probably the rarest of the three categories. Since early settlement these savannas were favored for homesites and pastures, and intensive mowing and grazing have all but eliminated seedling recruitment to replace old trees lost to storm and disease. In other cases, in the absence of grazing and fire, natural succession has transformed these savannas into uneven-aged woodlots. The two best known examples of this community type are W. Pearl King Prairie Grove situated on the Darby Plains of Madison County, and Daughmer Burr Oak Savanna on the Sandusky Plains of Crawford County. Both sites have been the subject of intensive acquisition efforts over the last two decades by The Nature Conservancy and the ODNR Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. Efforts are continuing, though neither landowner is willing to sell at this time.
The oak savannas of the Oak Openings situated on the Lake Plains of northwestern Ohio are dominated by black oak and northern pin oak. This is probably the most extensive oak savanna type in Ohio. Natural succession in the absence of fire has greatly altered these oak savannas but they are quite easily restored through interventions management practices such as prescribed burning and selective cutting with stump treatments. Toledo Metro Parks, TNC and the Division of Natural Areas & Preserves own and are managing excellent examples of this community type.
Situated on the Illinoisan Drift of the Blue Grass Physiographic Region of Ohio (primarily Adams County) are oak savannas dominated by black-jack oak, post oak and white oak. Excellent examples of this community type are owned and being actively managed by The Nature Conservancy and the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves.
The oak savannas of the tall grass prairie regions are least represented in Ohio's statewide system of nature preserves. Most examples of this community type, although not of the quality of the W. Pearl King or Daughmer sites, have great potential for restoration. The same can also be said for the other two categories of oak savannas in Ohio. Unfortunately, since they have been so degraded, they are not always as easy to recognize as are the better known sites.
As time and funding will allow, the DNR hopes to complete a comprehensive inventory of high-quality oak savannas as well as degraded sites which have the greatest possibility for recovery through intensive management. Once such an inventory has been completed, attempts will be made to bring the best sites under protection and to initiate restoration management practices with the goal of bringing them back to presettlement conditions to whatever extent possible.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
"Wisconsin's Biodiversity as a Management Issue."
The Wisconsin DNR is considering for possible agency policy a draft intra-agency report
entitled "Wisconsin's Biodiversity as a Management Issue," developed by an
internal biodiversity working group and technical team. This "technical,
informational report," which has not been adopted as agency policy, describes oak
savanna as one of the most pervasive and important pre-settlement landscapes in Wisconsin,
quoting Curtis' estimate that presettlement Wisconsin included around 5.5 million acres of
oak savanna.
"In the absence of active management," the report says, "the future of oak savanna looks very bleak in Wisconsin and throughout its entire range. The increasing abandonment of lightly to moderately grazed wooded pastures and the accelerating succession of oak woodlots toward heavy shade-producing trees and shrubs will lead to the decline and possible loss of much of what remains of the savanna flora and fauna, including eventual decline of the oaks themselves."
Since oak savanna was probably the optimum habitat for many game species, the report says, "management for oak savanna is compatible with traditional wildlife management and hunter interests." Moreover, "the recovery potential of oak savanna in Wisconsin is substantial...The pieces can still be found and put back together with a reasonable amount of effort. Currently there are hundreds if not thousands of acres of overgrown but retrievable oak savanna on DNR managed lands (in addition to) thousands of acres of private land, both overgrazed and overgrown, with retrievable oak savanna."
The draft report proposes consideration of several sets of actions on behalf of oak savanna recovery in Wisconsin, including developing an education/awareness program, developing a policy that states the department's abilities and willingness to promote and conduct safe and effective prescribed burns, pursue restoration/recovery efforts on as large, varied and intact tracts as possible, pursue as a high priority protection/maintenance of all high-quality remnants, provide buffer lands to these small high-quality sites, possibly set a statewide goal for total recovery and restoration of the oak savanna community: "Two to three percent (110,000-165,000 acres) of the original acreage may be a reasonable target. This goal, of course, would include both public and private lands."
Savanna restoration on state natural areas
The Wisconsin DNR is managing oak savanna and barrens sites at 21 state natural areas,
some of them in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy, totaling 2,050 acres. The
largest of these is the 659-acre Kettle Morain Oak Opening State Natural Area in Waukesha
County.
LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
County, municipal, and regional agencies around the Midwest are stewards of prime restorable savanna sites. Though constrained by limited resources, local governments can play a crucial role in oak savanna and woodlands restoration, often with the support and/or active participation of state or federal agencies, and/or conservation organizations.
A comprehensive list of savanna restoration and management projects led by local governments is beyond the scope of this document. The following examples illustrate the potential and the limitations of action by local governments.
-Yellow Banks Park in Polk County, Iowa, is a riverside site including both high-quality and degraded remnants of original oak savanna habitat. Though fire suppression has been practiced on the site since very soon after European settlement, grazing and light timbering has maintained a small high-quality savanna area. Analysis of aerial photographs from the 1930s, and botanical surveys, indicate the presence of significant areas of restorable original savanna. Under the leadership of Polk County Conservation Board natural resources specialist Lauren Lown, a 2.6-acre site was cleared of invading tree species during the winter of 1992-93. Plans are now being developed to clear more acreage, pending the results of three test plots where different combinations of herbicide, cutting and fire clearing methods are being tested. A draft management plan now proposes clearing during the 1993-94 cold season, with controlled burns in the springs of 1994 and 1995. A strategic evaluation of the results of the project, based on a floral survey, is projected for the fall/winter of 1995. One key obstacle, Lown wrote, was the need to educate the Conservation Board directors and staff about savanna restoration: "We did have a good deal of in-house dissent concerning this project," from staff and directors "who had doubts about 'cutting down the forest.'"
-The former "Oak Openings" of northwestern Ohio were located southwest of Toledo on 130 square miles of glacial lake sand deposits. Oak savannas, barrens and woodlands made up more than two thirds of the area prior to European settlement. By the 1980s, fire suppression and incompatible land uses have reduced the savanna acreage to a handful of degraded remnants. Many of the remnants exist in a 3000-acre natural area known as the Oak Openings Preserve Metropark, controlled by the Metropolitan Park District of the Toledo Area (Metroparks). In 1988, Metroparks and The Nature Conservancy jointly funded a study to obtain baseline data and detailed community descriptions of oak savanna remnants in the preserve. Controlled burning of some sites within the preserve began in the fall of 1988, though not all identified savanna remnants had yet been burned by 1992. Preliminary results of this effort indicate that "the herbaceous layer is responding slowly," while "black oak saplings have formed grubs which grow vigorously when fire is removed from the site for a year." Metroparks and TNC plans to analyze permanent macroplots at five-year intervals for shifts towards a species composition with greater similarity to the original savanna communities, as well as evaluating the success of management in restoring a canopy cover of less than 50% with increased dominance of savanna species.
-The Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois) manages 67,000 acres of natural areas in the Chicago metropolitan area. The Illinois Nature Conservancy has identified among that land several high-quality oak savanna sites. TNC work at one site on Forest Preserve site in the late 1980s led to the development of the Volunteer Stewardship Network, and ongoing program to coordinate the work of an estimated 4,000 land stewardship volunteers in Illinois. Recognizing a need for management of its lands to sustain biodiversity, the District in 1993 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with TNC, the Illinois Department of Conservation, and the USDA Forest Service. The agreement commits the partners to, among other goals, develop and implement site descriptions and three to five demonstration projects, support the District in developing and implementing a long-term, large-scale ecosystem management plan. The District in 1993 committed $74,400 to support Volunteer Stewardship Network work at key sites, including high-quality oak savanna remnants.
PRIVATE LANDOWNERS
Many high-quality oak savanna remnants are privately held (do we have a figure?). Oak savanna and woodland restoration is a rapidly evolving science, changing as new research and field results are made public. Restoration techniques, especially controlled burning, can be difficult to properly target and safely manage. Landowners should seek expert assistance before attempting landscape-scale restoration.
A number of resources are available to assist landowners in evaluating their land for possible restoration, and for managing or protecting high-quality remnants.
-Conservation organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy, can help landowners evaluate possible oak savanna remnants. Landowners interested in ensuring the preservation of high-quality remnants without losing all rights to the land can negotiate conservation easements with TNC or other organizations. Conservation organizations can also provide technical expertise and personnel for restoration efforts.
-The USDA Forest Service Forest Stewardship Program provides staff resources for woodland landowners to evaluate the quality and status of possible oak savanna lands. The stewardship program, administered by state departments of conservation, also provides technical assistance and financial aid for woodland landowners interested in managing their land for natural value. While not currently emphasized by any state Stewardship Committee in the region, oak savanna restoration and management is a valid part of the program, according to stewardship officials.
-The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 3 coordinates private lands management efforts with the Department of Agriculture's Wetlands Conservation and Farmers Home Administration programs, and has limited funds and staff targeted to oak savanna restoration and management.
-State departments of conservation and natural resources are beginning to acknowledge broader values in forest management than the traditional emphases on consumptive use. Assistance is more available to private landowners who want a balanced management plan, with greater emphases on ecosystem management and aesthetics. Tax benefits to forest land owners are more flexible in some states and permit forest management plans that do not require optimization of fiber production and game species.
CONSERVATION ORGANIZATIONS
Expertise and other characteristics:
- Lobbying Congress and State legislatures for environmental legislation.
- Flexibility in dealings with businesses, government agencies and the public.
- Land acquisition and management.
- Reserve design.
- Fundraising.
- Public relations.
- Establishment of volunteer base.
Current role:
- Active in implementing all functions within their expertise.
Actions taken to protect the oak savanna ecosystem:
- Coordinated agreements with State, County and local landholdings to conduct oak savanna restoration.
- Increase level of public awareness through progressive educational programs regarding the oak savanna ecosystem and restoration activities.
- Directly involve all interested and willing people in restoration, so as to make them part of the restoration process.
- Partnering with State and Federal agencies on restoration sites and other activities such as the Midwest Oak Savanna Conference.
- Facilitated development of the Natural Heritage Database.
Possible future actions:
- Lobby Congress to address endangerment of ecosystems.
- Lobby State legislatures for additional funding for land acquisition, land management and research.
- Target quality habitat areas for acquisition.
- Work closely with private land owners that have holdings of high-quality or restorable oak savanna habitat to manage the lands appropriately.
- Take the lead in mapping of oak savannas regionwide, including intensive assessment of relative quality of individual remnants. Priority should be placed on high-risk areas.
RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
Expertise and other characteristics:
- May include universities; state scientific surveys; private research institutions.
- Expertise in scientific inquiry.
- Data storage.
- Variable funding.
Current Role:
- Undertaking scientific and/or historical research.
- Offering library services.
- Public education.
Actions taken to protect the oak savanna ecosystem:
- Sponsoring Midwest Oak Savanna Conference.
Possible future actions:
- Sponsoring follow-up conferences and/or seminars.
- Offering appropriate curriculum and/or courses.
- Continuing public education.
CONCLUSIONS
The roles of the government agencies, conservation organizations, businesses and private individuals have been traditionally defined through the existing regulatory functions and missions currently in place. One of our challenges will be to determine how the functions of the various agencies and groups can be more clearly defined to more efficiently address savanna protection and management. Another challenge will be to articulate how agencies and organizations might expand their roles. To maximize efficiency, agencies and groups should continue to explore ways to work together towards a common goal of providing for adequate protection for a viable oak savanna ecosystem.
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