Vegetation and Revegetation

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See also Flora for a breakdown of species.

The Plant Kingdom and its soils form the green skin of the earth, and a pool of biodiversity. Vegetation provides food and resources described in Agriculture and Agroforestry. As a forested Ecoregion with a significant land base being managed for fiber production Forestry is an important topic. Riparian Buffering Functions are particularly important for acquatic habitats, and more braodly, vegetation mediates the Hydrology on a watershed scale. Revegetation is a broad term that describes a variety of practices that we use to modify the structural or compositional qualities of vegetation.

A typical revegetation effort involves three general components: 1) disturbances to create or sustain a niche in which to introduce new species, 2) introduction of that species onto the site with seeds, cuttings, or rooted stock, and 3) some kind of aftercare, such as supplemental water and nutrients, or additional disturbances to favor the introduced species. While we are focused on discrete projects, revegetation occurs in the context of natural vegetative evolution, driven by climate, hydrology, genetics, dispersal, competition, stress, and ongoing disturbance regimes. This page is a master topic page to organize information on the wiki to support revegetation practice.

Species Identification

Being able to systematically identify plant species is the building block for

Plant Identification provides an overview of resources and tools for identifying species in the plant kingdom.
The Ecosystem Guild has a native plant list (on a Google Sheet) that integrates USACE wetland indicators and site indicators published by Klinka et al 1989.

Understanding Vegetation Among Landforms

Vegetation varies systematically based on landscape position. which affects the soil parent material and hydrology. The first question at any site, are what are the viable natural vegetations for this landscape position. Resources that observe natural vegetation patterns support this work, and improve a practitioners ability to make observations in the field. A number of general resource consider vegetation across landform.

DNR Natural Heritage Program provides a range of reports describing composition of natural vegetation.
Klinka et al 1989 is a seminal description of factors suggested by the presence of species.
Washington Native Plant Society publishes plant lists that support reference site identification and evaluation.
File:Cereghino 2009 revegetation nearshore.pdf provides an 11-page introduction to revegetation practice developed for Salish Sea nearshore environments.
File:Aubry & Potash 2007 olympic native plant notebook.pdf is perhaps the best free reference produced in our region on the mechanics of revegetation.

Uplands and Forests

File:Chappell 2004 upland plan associations puget trough.pdf - in particular provides a voluminous list of common co-occurring plant communities observed in lowland Puget Sound.

Wetlands and Riparian

In 2021 WDNRs Natural Heritage Program is still developing its long awaited riparian and wetland classification. https://www.dnr.wa.gov/NHPwetlands
File:Kunze 1994 puget sound lowland wetland vegetation.pdf describes a Western Washington lowland wetland classification.

Riparian

Cramer et al 2012 provides a detailed discussion of riparian vegetation management for fishery restoration.
Windrope et al 2020 provides management recommendations on Riparian Buffering Functions and is intended as an update to Knutson & Naef 1997 and as a policy interpretation of Quinn et al 2018

Barrier Beach

Guttman 2009 describes backshore Beach vegetation in South Puget Sound and observes patterns in relations to large wood.

Tidal Wetlands

Kunze 1984 describes an inventory of high quality tidal marsh reference sites around Puget Sound.
Kunze & Cornelius 1982 provides a similar resource for tidal wetlands on the Washington outer coast.
Jefferson 1974 provides a seminal overview of Oregon coastal marsh composition over elevation and environmental controls which includes species common in the Salish Sea.
Eilers 1974 provides a detailed analysis of a estuarine island.

Freshwater Tidal

There are notably few resources for designing composition and structure of freshwater tidal vegetation.

Kunze & Cornelius 1982 provides a characterization of community composition in columbia river "surge plain" wetlands.
File:Cereghino 2004 freshwater tidal revegetation zones.pdf offers an analysis of freshwater tidal data using inundation duration as a basis for zonation as a surrogate for redox.

Disturbance and Soil Restoration

How to we create a niche in the field that is suitable for propagation?

Soil Restoration - on sites with severe distrubance, reinitiation of soil structures and processes may be critical to rapidly establishing vegetation.
Mulching Strategies - surface application of organic material has the dual function of supressing existing vegetation and fueling soil processes.
Tillage Strategies - for millennia, tillage has been used to create niches for introducing plants. Now we have machines.

Introduced Species Control

A substantial effort within the revegetation community involves the application of herbicide in an attempt to control the spread of non-indigenous species, often followed by afforestation. So far, information on the wiki is organized around specific species, or topics:

Phalaris arundinacea (reed canarygrass)
Polygonum
Blackberry Conversion
File:ESA 2022 invasive species & salmon recovery snohomish.pdf provides an unusual consideration of how invasive species control relates to the forest health which is part of Salmon Recovery.

Propagation and Planting Technique

How do we efficiently introduce species into a vegetation?

Cutting and Livestake Production, Processing and Installation is a topic page focused on livestakes and use of unrooted cuttings in the field, and is currently holding materials for biotechnical erosion control.
Herbivory Protection - describes strategies for reducing damage to new outplantings.
Sites With Planting Plans - there are a wide variety of approaches and styles for developing planting plants in a restoration context, we hope to curate a set of sites with exemplary planting plans.

Aftercare Strategies

How to we favor target composition after propagation?

Regional Suppliers

The following workgroups provide materials with Salish Sea genetics

Sound Native Plants - Olympia wholesale grower, designer and installer.
Inside Passage Seeds

Evaluation and Monitoring

How do we qualitatively and quantitatively observe vegetation?

Elzinga et al 1998 provides a strong basis in monitoring species populations as well as studying communities.
Moore et al 2003 provides a multi-purpose restoration monitoring program developed by Snohomish County
BLM 1999 provides a multi-agency manual for measuring various vegetation attributes.
File:Cereghino 2009 introduction to vegetation monitoring.pdf - a introductory slide show talking about why and how to observe vegetation in restoration.

Species

Flora pages describe what we know about individual species listed by Genus using the "category:flora"

Other Vegetation Pages

Vegetation describe documents and topics related to vegetation dynamics