PARENT SESSION
Poster Session # 7: Restoration, Resource Management, and Conservation.
Monday, August 4 Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. SITCC Exhibit Hall B.
Microcrustacean responses to hydrologic restoration of isolated wetland ponds.
DeBiase, Adrienne*,1, Taylor, Barbara1, 1 Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Aiken, SC, USA
ABSTRACT- Microcrustaceans are a diverse and abundant component of the animal communities of isolated depressional wetland ponds on the southeastern Coastal Plain. They play an important role in the trophic structure. Some species are temporary wetland pond specialists, thus they may be useful indicator species. Twenty isolated wetland ponds are part of the Carolina Bay Restoration Project on the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. All of these ponds had been ditched for agriculture, well before 1951. Since 1951, all have become forested, mainly with bottomland hardwoods and pine. The natural hydrology was restored in 16 of the ponds by plugging their ditches during 2000. These ponds were also logged. Half were re-planted with herbaceous vegetation, and half with pond cypress and black gum. The remaining four remained untouched to act as controls. We sampled the ponds for three yrs before the ditches were plugged, and we gave continued sampling for >2 yr post-treatment to characterize microcrustacean responses. Most of the pre-treatment communities supported fairly rich microcrustacean assemblages. Species richness was a function of hydroperiod length. No significant changes in species richness were observed in the first 2 years of post-treatment, indicating that the treatments had no detrimental effects. As suggested by a previous restoration of another SRS pond, we predict that new species will colonize slowly over at least the next 5-6 yrs. Analysis of data from a set of 88 SRS reference ponds suggests that the ponds with herbaceous plantings will have richer assemblages than those planted with trees. Also, if the restoration eventually produces permanent inundation, temporary pond specialists, such as the phyllopodous branchiopods, will be lost.
Key words: restoration, wetlands, microcrustaceans