Research for this study built on the experience of salmon restoration by exploring the lived experience of children ages eight to 12 who participated in an eight-month salmon restoration education program, the Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP), through the Kamloops School District and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The study used a qualitative multimodal phenomenological approach that is theoretically framed through deep ecology and systems theory to answer: What meanings and impacts do children experience when participating in restoration projects? Data was gathered through: children's reflections from the experience, observations from the field experience, researcher reflections, photographs, children's drawings, and six follow-up semi-structured interviews collected from five participating classes in the Kamloops School District. The research will support the Kamloops School District and participating teachers better understand the meaning and experiences of youth participating in Salmonid Enhancement Program in order to create more inclusive program design in the future.

Ecological restoration has been identified as an increasingly important tool in environmental policy circles, from reversing species loss to mitigating climate change. While there has been a steady rise in the number of research projects that have investigated social and ecological values that underpin ecological restoration, scholarship has predominantly been carried out at the theoretical level, to the detriment of engaging with real-world ecological restoration projects. This has resulted in generalised and speculative accounts of ecological restoration values. This thesis seeks to address this research gap through a critical analysis of the roles of aesthetic values in the creation and implementation of restoration policy, using three different case studies of ecological restoration at the landscape level in the United Kingdom. I employ interdisciplinary research methods, including semi-structured interviews, interpretive policy analyses, still photography, and sound recording techniques, to better understand the multi-sensorial qualities of ecological restoration. I trace the role of aesthetic value from the initial development of restoration policy through to the management of the post-restoration landscape, considering along the way how aesthetic values are negotiated amongst other types of social and ecological values, how aesthetic values are measured, articulated, and projected onto the landscape by restoration policy makers, and the ways in which aesthetic values are applied through design and management strategies across each site. Throughout the thesis, I engage with a number of current research themes within the ecological restoration literature that intersect with aesthetic value, such as the use of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ species in landscape restoration, and the procedure through which landscape reference models are selected. I also address hitherto unasked spatial questions of ecological restoration, including an examination of the aesthetic relationships between a restoration site and adjacent landscapes, and the application of spatial practices to regulate certain forms of post-restoration landscape utility. I demonstrate that aesthetic values play a multitude of different roles throughout the restoration process, and ultimately show that as aesthetic values are captured and put to use to different ends through policy, they are inherently bound up with competing ethical visions of society-nature relationships.

Submitted by Rodrigo Bernardes Freire null (rodrigobfreire@hotmail.com) on 2018-01-10T00:08:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PRIORIZAÇÃO DE ÁREAS PARA RESTAURAÇÃO ECOLÓGICA NA UGRHI 22 - PONTAL DO PARANAPANEMA, SÃO PAULO, BRASIL..pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Claudia Adriana Spindola null (claudia@fct.unesp.br) on 2018-01-10T11:59:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 freire_rb_me_prud.pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-10T11:59:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 freire_rb_me_prud.pdf: 14384914 bytes, checksum: 32af02c1ae8e5e28e1490053a6884452 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-02 / Este trabalho buscou identificar áreas para restauração ecológica dentro dos limites da UGRHI 22, localizada no Pontal do Paranapanema, na região oeste do Estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Essa região possui baixos índices de cobertura vegetal nativa, e, diante desse cenário que pode ocasionar desequilíbrio ambiental com prejuízo às atividades humanas e também devido às obrigações previstas em leis, faz-se necessário a definição de áreas nas quais as ações de restauração ecológica devem acontecer com prioridade. Para tanto, utilizou-se a metodologia de Combinação Linear Ponderada, em que as variáveis escolhidas são combinadas, atribuindo-se pesos para cada uma delas de forma a se obter o resultado final. Foram utilizados como fontes de informação e análise os dados de Fragilidade Natural à Erosão, Vulnerabilidade Natural dos Aquíferos à Poluição, Áreas de Preservação Permanente, Inventário Florestal, Conectividade do Estado de São Paulo, Unidades de Conservação e Áreas declaradas como prioritárias por outros instrumentos e definição dos pesos para as variáveis utilizadas foi feita a partir de uma matriz AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). Num primeiro momento, os dados foram combinados, gerando uma hierarquização em cinco classes, e partir dessa, foram destacadas as áreas com extensão superior a 5 hectares e que estivesse na classe de maior prioridade. Os resultados mostraram que há áreas prioritárias por toda extensão da UGRHI 22, com destaque para as APPs de forma geral e para as UPHs Baixo Paranapanema Margem Direita, Tributários do Rio Paraná e Santo Anastácio. Concluiu-se que os dados gerados representam adequadamente as áreas prioritárias na área da UGRHI e pela necessidade de implantação de projetos de restauração ecológica nos locais indicados. / This work aimed to identify areas for ecological restoration into the of UGRHI 22, located in Pontal do Paranapanema, in the western of the São Paulo State, Brazil. This region has low indices of native vegetation cover and, in face of this scenario that can cause environmental imbalance and affect human activities and also due to legal obligations, it is necessary to define areas in which ecological restorations actions must take place prioritarily. To achieve the results, the Weighted Linear Combination methodology was used, which means that the chosen variables are combined, and weights were assigned for each one of that. The definition of these weights was made by the application of and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) matrix and the data used as sources of information and to the analysis in this work were: Natural Fragility to Erosion, Natural Pollution Aquifer Vulnerability, Permanent Protection Area, Forest Inventory, Connectivity from the São Paulo State, Conservation Units and Areas that were declared as priority by other instruments. At first, the data were combined in order to generate a five classes hierarchy map, and then, the areas within the highest priority class and with extension larger than 5 hectares were selected. The final results showed that are priority areas throughout the extension of the UGRHI 22, with emphasis on the Permanent Protected Areas and the UPHs Right Margin of Lower Paranapanema, Tributaries of Parana River and Santo Anastacio. It was concluded that the results properly represent the priority areas in the UGRHI and the need to implement restoration projects in these places.

Ecological restoration aims to augment and steer the composition and contribution of propagules for community regeneration in degraded environments. Three studies were conducted to elucidate the role of regeneration dynamics and dominant species on community assembly during tallgrass prairie restoration. In the first study, patterns in the abundance, richness, and diversity of seed and bud banks were quantified across an 11-year chronosequence of restored prairies and in prairie remnants to elucidate the degree to which the germinable seed bank, emerged seedlings, belowground buds, and emerged ramets were related to community regeneration. There were no directional patterns in the abundance, richness, or diversity of the germinable seed bank across the chronosequence. Emerged seedling abundance of sown species decreased during restoration, whereas richness and diversity of all emerged seedlings and non-sown emerged seedling species decreased across the chronosequence. Conversely, abundance and richness of belowground buds increased with restoration age and belowground bud diversity of sown species increased across the chronosequence. Numbers of emerged ramets also increased across the chronosequence and was driven primarily by the number of graminoid ramets. There were no temporal changes in abundance and richness of sown and non-sown emerged ramets, but diversity of sown emerged ramets increased across the chronosequence. This study demonstrates that after initial seeding, plant community structure in restored prairies increasingly reflects the composition of the bud bank. In the second study, abundance and richness of ramets, emerged seedlings, seed rain, and the soil seed bank were measured in a restoration experiment consisting of a split plot design with population source of dominant grasses (cultivar vs. local ecotype) and sown subordinate species (three unique pools of non-dominant species) as the subplot factor, respectively. Different sown species pools were included to assess whether any observed differences in propagule abundance or richness between the dominant species sources was generalizable across varying interspecific interactions. Abundance of emerged ramets was similar between communities sown with cultivar and local ecotypes of the dominant grasses but differed among sown species pools in prairie restored with cultivars but not local ecotypes. Number of emerged seedlings also differed among species pools, but only in communities sown with local ecotypes of the dominant grasses. There was also higher seedling emergence in communities sown with local ecotypes relative to cultivars of the dominant grasses in one species pool. Richness of the seed rain was influenced by an interaction between dominant grass population source and sown species pool, resulting from (1) higher richness in prairie restored with local ecotypes than cultivars of the native grasses in one species pool and (2) differences in richness among species pools that occurred only in prairie restored with the local ecotype grass source. Abundance and richness of the seed bank was not affected dominant grass population source. This study addressed a poorly understood potential effect of using cultivars in ecological restoration, specifically on the abundance and supply of propagules for community assembly. These results suggest that if both local ecotype and cultivar sources are available for restoration, using local ecotypes could result in more seedling germination and richness in the seed rain. One of the central concepts of ecology is to understand the processes that influence species diversity, and how the resulting diversity affects ecosystem functioning. Diversity has been hypothesized to be responsible for long-term community stability, contrasted by the idea that dominant species regulate temporal stability (mass ratio hypothesis). In the third study, community metrics (total plant cover, forb cover, C4 grass cover, richness, and diversity) were measured in a restoration experiment consisting of a split plot design with sown dominant grasses (Andropogon gerardii, Schizachyrium scoparium, and Sorghastrum nutans) and subordinate species (three unique pools of non-dominant species) as the subplot factor, with treatment (control vs. suppression of dominant grasses) as the sub-subplot factor, respectively. Dominant grass suppression had little effect on forb cover, richness, and diversity, but influenced total and C4 grass cover. Propagule addition increased community richness and diversity in year of sowing and year after sowing, but contributed little to total cover. Dominant grass suppression had an effect on new species recruitment in one of two species pools, with suppression of all dominant grasses having the greatest influence on total cover and richness of new species. These results suggest that dominant species collectively are responsible for modulating stable species composition during community assembly and can act as a biotic filter to the recruitment of new species, but diverse subordinate species assemblages are more important for temporal stability.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-04-29Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:16:46Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 rissi_mn_me_botib.pdf: 4013269 bytes, checksum: 7f2b7759ec50422f03c785156a434e65 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / The concepts degraded environment and disturbed environment were initially proposed based on the observation of such processes in forest fragments. Disturbed environments, when subjected to agents, can reestablish after the removal of the disturbing factor. However, when the action is more intense and there is no potential to return to conditions similar to the previous ones, the vegetation is considered degraded. The question is: Would the actions that make a forest degraded have the same consequence in cerrado fragments? The present study aims to analyze the composition of the regenerative community over one year in a cerrado fragment located in the Municipal Botanical Garden of Bauru City, São Paulo State, Brazil (JBMB); to provide data to understand the ecological processes involved in the natural regeneration of degraded cerrado areas and the chemical combat as a viable alternative or not to control alien plants; and to contribute to the knowledge of the cerrado flora in Bauru region. Thus, some questions were raised. How does natural regeneration of the woody vegetation of a degraded cerrado occur? Would the chemical combat against invasive alien plants change the development of cerrado plants? Is intervention in the control of those plants favorable? The study area was deforested by the action of settlers, who established there in 1997. In 2007 the area was endorsed to the Municipal Botanical Garden of Bauru City (JBMB). During this period, the native vegetation was substituted for pasture. By two years ago the place has been abandoned and the natural vegetation started to regenerate. To evaluate the natural regeneration potential of cerrado, a comparative floristic and phytosociological survey was carried out in three areas inside JBMB. The first area is inserted in a cerradão fragment, free of... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

abstract: Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plant roots, increasing nutrient and water availability to plants and improving soil stability. Mechanical disturbance of soil has been found to reduce mycorrhizal inoculum in soils, but findings have been inconsistent. To examine the impact of restoration practices on riparian mycorrhizal inoculum potential, soil samples were collected at the Tres Rios Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Control Project located at the confluence of the Salt, Gila, and Agua Fria rivers in central Arizona. The project involved the mechanical removal of invasive Tamarix spp.( tamarisk, salt cedar) and grading prior to revegetation. Soil samples were collected from three stages of restoration: pre-restoration, soil banks with chipped vegetation, and in areas that had been graded in preparation for revegetation. Bioassay plants were grown in the soil samples and roots analyzed for arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EM) infection percentages. Vegetations measurements were also taken for woody vegetation at the site. The mean number of AM and EM fungal propagules did not differ between the three treatment area, but inoculum levels did differ between AM and EM fungi with AM fungal propagules detected at moderate levels and EM fungi at very low levels. These differences may have been related to availability of host plants since AM fungi form associations with a variety of desert riparian forbs and grasses and EM fungi only form associations with Populus spp. and Salix spp. which were present at the site but at low density and canopy cover. Prior studies have also found that EM fungi may be more affected by tamarisk invasions than AM fungi. Our results were similar to other restoration projects for AM fungi suggesting that it may not be necessary to add AM fungi to soil prior to planting native vegetation because of the moderate presence of AM fungi even in soils dominated by tamarisk and exposed to soil disturbance during the restoration process. In contrast when planting trees that form EM associations, it may be beneficial to augment soil with EM fungi collected from riparian areas or to pre-inoculate plants prior to planting. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Applied Biological Sciences 2012

Wildfires play a significant role in many different elements of Mediterranean forest ecosystems. In recent years, prescribed fires have started being used more often as a fuel reduction tool, and also as silvicultural treatment to help the regeneration and health improvement of stands. Apart from the fact that fire may alter microsite conditions, very little is known about the impact of prescribed burning on natural regeneration or plant species renewal in Mediterranean pine forests. Likewise, knowledge about the influence of seedling predators on post-fire regeneration is still scarce. In this study, we aimed to compare the effects of seedling predation on recruitment in earlier stages after prescribed burnings in three pine stands in Central Spain: a pure stand of Pinus nigra; a mixed stand of Pinus halepensis and Pinus pinaster and a mixed stand P. nigra with P. pinaster. In situ we superficially sowed seeds from two different species. In the sowing experiment, we tested two different seed provenances (drier and more humid spanish regions) for each species. In all, 60 plots (30 burned, 30 unburned) per site, with 10 seeding units per plot and more than 20,000 seeds, were used in the whole study. Seedling predation was evaluated by replicating the seeding units inside and outside a wire cage as protection for rodents and birds. Our results showed that prescribed fires alter initial seedling predation intensity: predation was significantly higher in the seedlings grown in the plots affected by prescribed fire. The individuals sown before the fire passed showed slightly more predation than those sown after fire passage. Provenances did not appear as an important predation drive. Understanding the role of the predation associated with these treatments can help improve Mediterranean pine forest management.

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In 2017 the Kenow wildfire burned thirty-eight percent of Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) in southern Alberta at high to very high severity in mere hours. The ecological impacts of the fire will have implications for resource management, including the practice of ecological restoration, for decades to come. In this thesis I ask two main questions. First, in what ways are people who are involved in managing WLNP’s ecosystems experiencing the effects of the Kenow wildfire, and how does their experience combined with the severity and extent of the Kenow wildfire influence park management and ecological restoration approaches in WLNP? Subsidiary to this, I ask, what is the role of history, and the role of future climate projections in managing the post-fire landscape? This research is part of the larger Mountain Legacy Project (MLP), which is systematically repeating historic survey photographs taken in the early 1900s across Canada’s mountain landscapes. I use third-view photographs in photo-elicited semi-structured interviews with park staff to answer my first question. In my second research question I ask what broader themes and specific issues do third-view repeat mountain photographs elicit about ecological restoration and park management. As a follow up, I inquire into what ways photo-elicitation functions as an effective method in park management research? Fourteen participants were interviewed, the majority were resource conservation staff, in addition to one retired park warden, a member of the cultural resources unit, a communications staff, and a former staff member. Participants felt wide-ranging emotions relating to the Kenow fire including grief over loss, happiness about regrowth, excitement about learning, anxiety about people’s safety, and stress over increased workloads. Park management frames vegetation regeneration after the Kenow fire as renewal, accepting that the landscape may look different than it did before the fire. Climate change is only beginning to be integrated into ecological restoration, though park management is adapting to climate change by encouraging renewal under a new climate. Historical knowledge still guides decision making in several ways. Major restoration projects including invasive species management, whitebark and limber pine restoration, and prescribed burning, were all impacted by the Kenow fire. Participants shared their thoughts on unconventional approaches such as novel ecosystems, highlighting misunderstandings and misapprehensions about the concept. Parks Canada has an opportunity to learn from Waterton Lakes’ experience to help streamline their post-emergency response in the future. Findings relating to my second question show these themes and issues were discussed most often by participants when looking at the third-view mountain photographs: fire behaviour, regeneration/renewal, and ecological impacts of the Kenow fire; encroachment; prescribed burning; personal narratives; ecological effects of climate change; and other snapshots. Just less than half the participants did not engage significantly with the photos, which highlights a challenge in using researcher chosen photos. However, many participants did engage and had much to say about the photos, including sharing memories and personal stories. Pre-determined interview questions were essential in unearthing the findings in this thesis, as the photos did not elicit this information alone. / Graduate

My research findings have implications for applied ecology and restoration policy in Ontario. I my discussions, and final chapter, I offer suggestions for the practitioner. / Restoration practitioners are tasked with recreating ecosystems using appropriate plant material that will provide ecological goods and services. However, best-practices for this type of intervention are not well developed for the southern Ontario landscape. Therefore, we evaluated approaches from four different aspects of seed-based restoration. First, we quantified the impact of seeding rate and application method on the success of grassland recreation. We also measured the impact of this restoration on the local bee community. Next, we compared a suite of native and nearly native wetland plants for their potential to prevent the establishment of invasive Phragmites australis. We measured the effect of competition on Phragmites across soil moisture and salinity gradients. Finally, we sought evidence for local specialization in a grassland forb, Monarda fistulosa, that would warrant policies to prevent the transfer of grassland seed for revegetation. In re-creating grasslands from seed, we found an interaction between seeding rate and application method. At a high rate, both methods had the same outcome, but at a low rate, a two-phase application method produced better results than a single-phase method. However, we also found that a single-phase method produced target plant cover with a higher floristic quality index after three years. In one study region, restored sites supported a greater bee abundance than un-restored sites, but bee abundance did not change after restoration in all regions. Of all the native species tested, Phragmites was supressed most by Bidens frondosa, a fast growing annual. We also found evidence that Phragmites may be less competitive at low soil moisture, and more competitive at high soil salinity. Finally, we found no evidence of local adaptation in M. fistulosa at the watershed scale; instead, we see independent effects of site and seed origin. This implies that current site conditions may not be favorable to the offspring of relic populations, and that local genotypes may not always be the best choice for restoration. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / I tested four approaches to seed-based restoration. First I found that a two-phase hydroseeding method can be more efficient at a low seeding rate. Second, I found that the response of the bee community to local restoration may depend on broader landscape factors. Next, I found that Monarda fistulosa is not locally adapted at a watershed scale. Finally, I found that native annuals may be best at resisting invasion from Phragmites, and that some native species actually can facilitate invasion.