PARENT SESSION
Symposium #3: Ecological Theory and Restoration Ecology.
Organized by: MA Palmer, D Falk, and J Zedler
Monday, August 5. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Leo Rich Theatre.
Restoring favorable metapopulation characteristics of Tahoe yellow cress (Rorippa subumbellata) based upon data from long-term monitoring .
Pavlik, Bruce*,1,2, Faulkner, Maurya3, Murphy, Dennis4, 1 Mills College, Oakland, CA2 BMP Ecosciences, San Francisco, CA3 California State Lands Commission, Los Angeles, CA4 University of Nevada, Reno, NV
ABSTRACT- Conserving and restoring populations of Tahoe Yellow Cress, a perennial plant endemic to the shorezone of Lake Tahoe, required the assembly and analysis of a 20+ year monitoring dataset. The data had been collected by many different biologists over this period and required careful evaluation and simplification to ensure high quality and uniformity. Analyses of "persistence" and "presence", which relied only on occurrence records, suggested that the species exhibited metapopulation dynamics with extirpation events outnumbering colonization events by a 3 to 1 ratio. Lake level fluctuation (natural and human-controlled) and recreational pressure were the primary drivers. We also used the data to estimate a "minimum viable population" size for setting restoration targets and to evaluate sites for reintroduction potential. An 8 year program was subsequently designed and implemented with the goal of restoring metapopulation characteristics that would sustain the species over the whole of the shorezone.
KEY WORDS: metapopulations, restoration, reintroduction, monitoring