Transcript Ecologically Appropriate Plant Materials for

Ecologically Appropriate
Plant Materials
for Functional Restoration
USDA-Agricultural Research Service
Forage & Range Research Laboratory
Logan, UT
Tom Jones & Tom Monaco
Loss of Ecological Function
on the Intermountain Sagebrush Steppe
a
d
b
e
c
f
Jones and Monaco (2009)
Increasing degradation
Ecosystem function
biotic
threshold
primary
processes fully
functional
abiotic
threshold
primary
processes
partially
functional
A
B
improved
management
required
seeding
required
primary
processes
nonfunctional
C
physical
modification
required
Time or disturbance intensity
(Whisenant 2002)
State-and-Transition Model
Briske et al. (2008)
Loss of Residual
Ecosystem Properties
(when Positive Feedbacks
exceed Negative Feedbacks)
Briske et al. (2006)
Level of plant material performance
Closing the Performance Gap
Performance necessary to
meet the increasing
environmental challenge
EA 3
EA 2
EA 1
Local
material
time a
time b
Time
time c
Jones et al. (2010)
Relative Performance
of Two Populations (A & B)
at their two Native Sites (A & B)
Site A
A
Site B
B
General
adaptation
A
A
General
adaptation
B
B
Local
maladaptation
B
A
Local
adaptation
Two Meta-analysis Studies
Hereford
(2009)
Leimu &
Fischer
(2010)
Sample size (n)
892
1,032
Local superior
to non-local
71 %
71 %
Local
adaptation
48 %
45 %
General
adaptation
43 %
51 %
9%
3%
Local
maladaptation
“Local has value”
Assisted evolution for altered
environments entails plant
materials that:
• reflect general historical
evolutionary patterns
• display fitness in the modified
environment
• adapt to contemporary selection
pressures
• contribute to the restoration of
ecological structure and function
Jones and Monaco (2009)
Ecologically Appropriate
Plant Materials
• display ecological fitness on
their intended site
• display compatibility with other
members of the plant community
• display no invasive tendency
• are synonymous with GA plant
materials for pristine
ecosystems
(Jones 2013)
Feature
Genetically
Appropriate
Ecologically
Appropriate
Paradigm
“local is best”
“local has value”
Ecosystem status
pristine
novel
Restoration
objective
preservation
ecosystem repair
Disciplinary
orientation
population-level
ecology
ecosystem-level
ecology
botany
Environmental
variation
steep gradients
homogeneous
Species
characteristics
specialists
generalists
unique or extreme
environments
common
environments
rare or limited
distributions
widespread
distributions
long generation
short generation
times, e.g., woodies
times, e.g, grasses
in situ seed
ex situ seed
production
production in a
cultivated field
Restoration Gene Pool concept
Primary RGP
local plant material
Secondary RGP
nonlocal plant material
of the same species
Tertiary RGP
material developed through
hybridization with a close relative
Quaternary RGP
an alternate species of the
same functional group
Jones (2003), Jones and Monaco (2007)