Vegetation community monitoring trends in restored tallgrass prairie at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield: 2008–2020
Authors: Leis Sherry 
Published: April 2022

Plant community monitoring at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield (NB) focused on the restored tallgrass prairie community. Six monitoring sites were visited four times and observations of plant species and ground cover were made. In addition to those observations, we included two environmental factors in this report—precipitation and recent fire history—to help understand the vegetation data status and trends. Precipitation data (standardized vegetation index) indicated drought conditions in 2012 and some dry periods in 2016. Although prairies are adapted to drought, we found that species richness at the site and community scales (alpha and gamma diversity) were reduced in dry years. Fire management also plays an important role in shaping the plant communities. Prescribed fire occurrence became less frequent through the monitoring period. Also, additional treatments, including herbicide and mowing, likely shaped the prairie community. Tree regeneration and nonnative plants in particular may have been affected by these techniques. The prairie plant community continues to be moderately diverse despite recent increases in tree seedlings and small saplings. Species richness varied over time and was correlated with precipitation; diversity indices (H′ and J′) were similar across monitored years. Species guilds (also known as functional groups) demonstrated differing patterns. Woody plants, long a concern at the park, were abundant and statistically similar across years. Many guilds were quite variable across the sites, but nonnative forbs declined, and nonnative grasses increased. Overstory trees and canopy cover, measured for the first time in 2020, have likely influenced the composition of one site. The composition of this site points to a shrubland-savanna community. Four of the sites tended towards shrubland rather than tallgrass prairie. The vegetation monitoring protocol experienced some changes between 2008 and 2020. A key difference was a shift from sampling twice during the field season to sampling only once in a monitoring year. An anticipated decline in species richness was observed in 2012 and 2016, but we were unable to isolate sample design as the cause. Additionally, we remedied inconsistencies in how tree regeneration was recorded by tallying seedlings and saplings in the field. Our quality assurance procedures indicated that our observer error from pseudoturnover was 20.2%, meeting our expectations. Cover class estimates agreed 73% of the time, with all disagreements within one cover class. Coordinating management actions to achieve plant community goals like structure and composition of tallgrass prairie will be critical to the survival of the prairie species at the park. Fire and nonnative plant treatments along with the reduction of woody cover including trees are needed to arrest the transition to savanna and woodland community types. Frequent prescribed fire is an integral process for this community and there is no equivalent substitute. Continued focus on management for the desired tallgrass prairie community will also provide needed habitat for imperiled pollinators such as the monarch butterfly. Best management practices for pollinators on federal lands specify that treatments (prescribed fire, mowing or haying) should not occur during the blooming season or when pollinator breeding, egg, larval or pupal stages are present.