Moist-soil wetlands that are seasonally flooded provide important habitats for waterfowl in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV). These wetlands often contain tall and dense vegetation that may constrain waterfowl use before natural openings form. During winters 2006–2009, I estimated abundances of waterbirds, seeds and tubers, and invertebrates in response to autumn, prelooding treatments of light disking, mowing, and no manipulation (control) of vegetation in 26 moist-soil wetlands in the MAV. Seeds and tubers were most abundant in control and mowed plots in late autumn. Decomposition was least and invertebrate abundance was greatest in control plots during winter. Dabbling ducks were most abundant in mowed and disked plots during winter. Lightly disked plots contained ~30% fewer seeds and tubers than mowed and control plots. In late winter, ~260 kg[dry]/ha of seeds and tubers remained among mowed, disked, and control plots. Therefore, autumn mowing of robust moist-soil vegetation can be used to create an interspersion of emergent vegetation and open water attractive to waterfowl and conserve waterfowl foods. Additionally, I identified 6 seed taxa that may not be used for food by dabbling ducks (i.e., Amaranthus spp., Cyperus odoratus, Eleocharis spp., Ipomoea spp., Jacquemontia tamnifolia, Sesbania herbacea) and estimated that removing these and other taxa not reported in diet literature in the MAV resulted in a ~31% reduction in estimated moist-soil food availability for ducks. In other experiments, I estimated that waterfowl reduced experimentally placed Japanese millet (Echinochloa frumentacea) to ~10 kg/ha and other natural seeds and tubers to ~170 kg/ha in experimental plots in mid-winter. However, waterfowl did not abandon wetlands or stop foraging when seed reduction ceased, suggesting residual abundances of seeds and tubers represented a food availability threshold (FAT). Using the median FAT value of 220 kg/ha from both experiments and removing 31% of seed mass that may not be consumed by dabbling ducks, results in a ~70% decrease in moist-soil seed availability in the MAV. Conservation planners should consider reducing the current estimates of seed and tuber availability and recommend increasing active management or implementation of additional managed, moist-soil wetlands in the MAV.

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) contained vast bottomland hardwood forests into the 20th century. Humans cleared forests, and altered hydrology, yet the MAV remains important for North American waterfowl and other wildlife. To estimate standing crops of aquatic invertebrates as food in hardwood bottomlands for wintering waterfowl, I quantified dry mass of invertebrates in naturally flooded forests (NFFs) and greentree reservoirs (GTRs) during winters 2008–2010. The MAV had greater invertebrate mass in NFFs (x̄ = 18.39 kg/ha; SE = 2.815 [CV = 15.3%]) than GTRs (x̄ = 5.16; SE = 0.492 [CV = 9.5%]), compared with lesser masses in Mississippi Interior Flatwoods’ GTR (x̄ = 2.26; SE = 0.320) and NFF (x̄= 1.45; SE = 1.305). Invertebrate diversity was greatest in NFFs and in depths from 10–40 cm. Flooding GTRs ≤ 40 cm and managing naturally dynamic hydrology may benefit invertebrates, ducks, and associated bottomland hardwood communities

No description available.

This project aims to establish a river park with purification capacity and conservation of soil and water, protecting habitats for plants and animals. Combining local history and culture to form new urban landscape and improve the urban living environment.  Historically, Yangquan had a very favorable ecological environment and was one of the birthplaces of agriculture and culture in Shanxi province. From the 1950s, after a long period of exploration, it was discovered that Yangquan had a large amount of coal resources. Since then Yangquan City has become a coal mining-oriented city. With the development of coal mining industry in recent years, the ecological environment has been deteriorated due to over-exploitation, discharge. The city's most important river, Taohe River, has suffered from declining water volume and fragile water environment, which even led to the loss of self-purification ability of the rivers.  Pollution is not the only issue with the Taohe River, but there are also floods and droughts caused by extreme weather. Therefore, river management is necessary before Yangquan transforms into a livable city. Three strategies, Optimize Water Resource, Anti-Flooding and Diverse Programs, are proposed to solve urban river issues and achieve the aim of living with river.

No description available.

No description available.

Archaeological data has increased significantly with Cultural Resource Management agencies finding and recording archaeological sites all across Utah. With the site data from the Utah State Historical Preservation Office, I examine the expansion of Archaic sites in the Eastern Great Basin from the Early Archaic through the Late Archaic, through the lens of elevation and ecological zones and proximity to wetland resources. I argue that the aridness of the Middle Holocene caused the people to expand into the mountains of Utah, and that the expansion continued into the Late Archaic period, even though the environment became more moist again. I also argue that the people of the Archaic stayed near to wetlands and wetland resources throughout the Archaic.

Disturbance is one of the central concepts explaining how diversity arises and is perpetuated in ecological time. A good model system for testing hypotheses related to disturbance is the longleaf pine ecosystem in the southeastern U.S. because in this ecosystem frequent, low-severity fires acts as a disturbance that maintains a unique vegetation structure and high species richness. Vegetation structure influences animal distributions; in fire-dependent ecosystems many animals rely on open-structured, fire-maintained vegetation but shrubs and trees encroach into fire-dependent ecosystems where fire has been excluded. Prescribed burning and mechanical removal are commonly used as restoration tools to control encroachment. To better assess and compare the restoration potential of these tools, a more thorough understanding of how they change vegetation structure and habitat suitability for animals is necessary. The southeastern U.S. is a diversity hot-spot for amphibians, many of which require ephemeral wetlands embedded in longleaf pine uplands for the aquatic phase of their life cycle. Amphibian diversity has been declining in recent decades and habitat loss/degradation has been cited as one of the leading causes. Although often overlooked in studies of fire ecology, the ephemeral wetlands required by many amphibians are also fire-dependent habitats that have been negatively impacted by lack of fire. To understand how disturbance interacts with wetland vegetation and aquatic-phase amphibians, three disturbance treatments meant to mimic the effects of natural disturbance on vegetation structure were applied randomly to 28 dry ephemeral iii wetlands in the Lower Coastal Plain of South Carolina, U.S. The treatments consisted of early growing-season prescribed fire, mechanical vegetation removal (a proposed fire surrogate), and a combination of mechanical removal plus fire; some sites were left untreated for reference. Vegetation structure was quantified and amphibian assemblages were monitored before and after treatments. In addition, one species of amphibian was used in a tadpole survival experiment to examine differences in performance among treatments. Other factors that could be affected by treatments and in turn influence amphibians were measured, including water chemistry, wetland depth, quantity and quality of epilithon, and leaf litter composition. Amphibian survival was lowest, and species depauperateness highest in untreated wetlands. Depauperateness of species whose range was restricted to the range of longleaf pine was lowest in sites that had mechanical treatment plus fire. The mechanical plus fire treatment created the most open vegetation structure with lowest leaf litter accumulation, especially of hardwood litter, conditions correlated with high amphibian survival and diversity. When data from this study was combined with data from a previous study of similar nearby wetlands, a pattern emerged in which one suite of species was absent from recently burned sites, while an entirely different suite of species was absent from long-unburned sites. This evidence suggests that disturbance is related to a shift in amphibian assemblage possibly due to changes in vegetation structure and perhaps wetland ecology in general, from an algal-based system maintained by frequent fire to a detrital-based system that develops in the absence of fire

The main objectives of this study were to investigate (i) anovel wetland treatment technology and (ii) selected bed filtermedia for the removal of contaminants from landfill leachate. Areview of the literature concerning experiences of the use ofconstructed wetlands (CW) for the removal of nitrogen fromlandfill leachate, showed that at least three groups oftreatment systems are in practice: sub-surface flow wetlands,hybrid systems (a combination of vertical and horizontal flowwetlands) and, compact constructed wetland (CCW). Most of thesetypeswere generally effective in reducing nitrogen (N,e.g.NH4-N, dominant N species in leachate) down toeffluent concentrations of about 10 mg L-1. Unfortunately, very little evidence ofresponsible mechanisms for the removal of N was presented,although some data indicated denitrification. The treatmentperformance of a compact constructed wetland (CCW) applied atthe Tveta Landfill, Södertälje, Sweden, wasevaluated. Chemically purified leachate and untreated leachatewere applied in periods of 7 day submergence and 7 day drainageto different sections of the CCW. The removal efficiency variedbetween 40 and 82%, and a mass removal rate of up to 5.1 g m2d-1was achieved. The chemical pre-treatment had adecisive role for the highest removal efficiencies obtained andit was unclear whether that treatment enhanced the efficiencybecause of lower toxicity and/or content of fewer competingcations. The possible combination of bed filter media and CCWas an ecotechnological treatment method for landfill leachatewas investigated by bench-scale laboratory column experiments.Reactive filter media (sorbents) was selected from their knownor suggested capacities for removal of heavy metals, nitrogenand phosphorus. Quartz sand or natural sand from an esker wasused as reference medium. Peat was used as an additionalcomponent in mixtures with the reactive media Polonite®(product from the bedrock opoka) and blastfurnace slag (BFS). A small column study also involved zeolite.Phosphorus was efficiently removed by Polonite®and NH4-N to some extent. Concerning metal removal, thebest performance was found as well for Polonite®, especially for Mn, Fe, Zn and Cu. The BFSshowed good removal efficiency for Cu, Ni and Mo. The removalof different elements was suggested to be a combination ofseveral factors,e.g.precipitation, ion exchange and adsorption. Priorto full-scale application of reactive filters at a landfillsite, matrix selection, filter design and operationalprocedures must be developed. Keywords:Blast furnace slag; Compact constructedwetland; Metals; Nitrogen; Polonite; Sorbents

Wetlands are now recognized for the many social, environmental, ecological, and economic benefits they provide. They improve water quality, support biodiversity, abate floods and storms, and provide local recreational areas. Historically, many wetlands have been drained or altered for residential, commercial, or agricultural use. Effective wetland restoration projects reestablish ecosystem services and mitigate legacy effects of land use change to create self-sustaining systems. However, a persisting lack of scientifically-vetted methodological and evaluation guidelines in the field of restoration ecology has caused many restoration efforts to fail to restore natural wetland hydrologic conditions. By definition, wetlands must be saturated, permanently or seasonally, for durations long or frequent enough to support hydrophilic vegetation. It is therefore critical in planning restoration projects to focus on creating shallow water table conditions and adequate soil moisture retention in the vadose zone. This study quantitatively assesses the efficacy of a process-based ecological restoration technique that has been implemented at a retired cranberry bog in Manomet, Massachusetts. This restoration approach involved the creation of microtopography, ditch filling, and redistribution and mixing of the shallow substrate. The restoration goal for these actions was to bring the water table closer to the surface, increase soil moisture in the root zone, and increase habitat variability at the site. I examined the potential impact of these restorative techniques on groundwater and soil moisture dynamics. I conducted a parametric study using variably saturated groundwater flow modeling, examine the influence of specific restoration parameters (the near surface mixing ratio, anisotropy, and microtopographic geometry) on the restoration outcome. I tested the sensitivity of the water table and soil moisture to alterations in the near surface geologic structure resulting from a pit-and-mound restoration. I hope these findings will inform and optimize these practices for future restoration projects.