PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 10: Restoration and Adaptive Management
Tuesday, August 9, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall 220 A-E, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Using mycorrhizae to reclaim mined lands with native plants.
Melnechuk, Maria*,1, Lanza, Janet 2, Hattenbach, Meryl1, 1 The Nature Conservancy, Little Rock, AR, USA2 University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA
ABSTRACT- The environmental impact of surface mining is of global importance. Annually, in the United States alone, hundreds of thousands of acres of land are disturbed by extracting minerals. Millions of dollars are spent every year restoring vegetation to lands denuded by mining. In this experiment, we examined the role of mycorrhizae, seeding rate, and fertilizer in promoting the growth of native plants at a reclaimed mine site in central Arkansas. Native seeds were broadcast along with a commercial, mixed-species inoculum of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Permanent field plots were established to examine the role of treatments in situ and quantify the interactions between treatments. Plots with mycorrhizae added had three times more native plant cover than plots with no mycorrhizae (P ≤ 0.05). A significant interaction occurred between mycorrhizae and fertilizer treatments in each month of data collection. Plots with mycorrhizae and no fertilizer had a higher percent cover of native plants than plots receiving either fertilizer alone or fertilizer and mycorrhizae together (P ≤ 0.05). This interaction suggests a decrease in effectiveness of mycorrhizae in areas with high fertility. Seeding rate and fertilizer treatments did not significantly increase native plant cover. Our results emphasize the importance of mycorrhizae in degraded soils, such as mine sites, especially when restoring native plants.
Key words: native plants, mycorrhizae, restoration, mine reclamation