Talk for the High Park stewards group January 24 2016, at Howard Park Tennis Club, High Park, Toronto

1. What is habitat recovery?
How should we measure it?
Professor Dawn R. Bazely
Biology Department
A talk for the High Park Stewards group
Sunday 24th January 2016, Toronto

2. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

4. Most Canadians live within 100 km of the US border
Map – Gov’t of Canada

5. Southwestern Ontario:
the most densely settled part of Canada
• Intense urban,
industrial
agricultural
land use
• 5-15% Natural
Habitat cover

8. https://caroliniancanada.ca/

10. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

11. The Biodiversity Crisis
• “99% of all species that have existed are
extinct and…
• rates of extinction have varied enormously”
• “Are we currently in a period of mass
extinction?”
• Norman Myers (1976, Science v193:198)

12. The Biodiversity Crisis
• Current extinction
rates are estimated at
10-100 times greater
than in the past
• E.O. Wilson (right
May 2015 at Harvard)
called this the
Biological Diversity
Crisis (1985)

13. The Biodiversity Crisis
• Causes of current mass extinction (Diamond 1989):
• 1. Habitat destruction
• 2. Habitat fragmentation
• 3. Over-exploitation
• 4. Introduced species
• 5. Secondary effects or “chains of extinction”

14. The Biodiversity Crisis
• Causes of current mass extinction (Diamond 1989):
• 1. Habitat destruction
• 2. Habitat fragmentation
• 3. Over-exploitation
• 4. Introduced species
• 5. Secondary effects or “chains of extinction”

15. The Biodiversity Crisis
• We can add to the list:
• Pollution (Lande 1999)
• Global climate change (Chapin et al. 2000)
• All of these activities contribute to reduced
species richness, genetic variation and the range
of ecosystem types

16. The Biodiversity Crisis
• We can add to the list:
• Pollution (Lande 1999)
• Global climate change (Chapin et al. 2000)
• All of these activities contribute to reduced
species richness, genetic variation and the range
of ecosystem types

17. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– The Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

18. Responses – Restoration
• Ecological Restoration – doing restoration
• Restoration Ecology – the study of it
• What should habitat managers aim for?
• How do we know if/when the goal was met?

19. If you buy a fixer-upper…
• http://www.arcticcircle.ca/DehCho/Res/P6242126.jpg

20. Would you simply hand over 💰 to any
contractor not check up on them?
http://www.wwf.eu/media_centre/publications/living_planet_report/
http://awsassets.wwf.ca/downloads/thenatureaudit_may2003.pdf

21. Responses – Restoration
• The Adaptive Management framework
(Hollings 1978) assumes:
– Ecosystems, communities populations are
dynamic variable
– Management action will be based on peer-
reviewed research
– Sustainable management will involve trial and
error learning
– Results will be tracked and benchmarked

22. The ecologist’s role in the ecological management model
(yellow) (Figure by Norman Yan)
Report to
Society
Gauge response
of society
(Re)-assess
societal goals
Are species or
ecosystems
threatened or
damaged?
Identify
Stressor(s)
Model
Stressor
Action
Assess
Possible
Solutions
Apply
Preferred
Solution
Assess
Effectiveness
Survey the condition of
species ecosystems
(re-) select
bioindicators
Develop
ecosystem
targets
Monitor the state
of species
Assessment
Prevention/
Remediation
Yes
No

23. Responses – Restoration
• Adaptive Management is common sense:
– looks at the longer term
– highlights difficult trade-offs
– embraces alternatives
– explicitly acknowledges that there are ranges of
possible outcomes (Walters 1986)
– Is the adaptive management approach usually
successful? 😩 Sometimes…

24. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– The Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science – gardeners

25. Our Carolinian Zone

26. Our Carolinian plant communities
• Savannas - open
forests, many prairie
species
• Closed canopy forests
Backus Woods
Pinery Provincial Park

27. Our Carolinian Zone
Black Oak Red Cedar Savanna
• Open habitats with
continuous ground cover
dominant tree species
• Fire-dependent
• Many rare-in-Ontario
plant species
• Habitat of the extirpated
Karner Blue butterfly,
which feed on wild lupine
(far right)

28. Our Carolinian Zone - Forests
• Diverse species composition
• Delightful species such as
spicebush, tulip tree, and other
more southern species
• Lots of interesting understorey
herbs

29. Our Carolinian Zone – Ecosystem Pressures
• Altered disturbance regimes:
– Too many people, too many
deer, too little fire
• Changes in species:
– Introduced species both
indigenous non-indigenous
invasive species

30. Our Carolinian Zone habitats
1991-2005
• Reduced cover of rare plant
communities such as red cedar
savanna black oak savanna
• Low forest black oak savanna
regeneration due to deer
herbivory
• Extirpation (local loss) of species
• Increased cover of non-
indigenous species

31. Our Carolinian Zone
• Management goals:
1. Restore appropriate
disturbance regimes – an
ecosystem approach
– Reduce deer densities
– Reintroduce fire
2. Reverse biodiversity losses –
a plant community species
approach
– Reintroduce native species
– Remove non-indigenous species

32. Measuring Our Carolinian Zone Ecosystems
• Individual species –
numbers, size, where
they are found
• Plant community
composition – how
many species? cover?
• Ecosystem metrics –
light levels, soil
moisture etc.

33. Our Carolinian Zone
Non-native species in oak savannas
Pinery 4%
Rondeau 9%Pt. Pelée 11%

34. Our Carolinian Zone
Point Pelée National Park
• est. 1918
• 15 sq. km
• an agricultural and cottage
history
• 37% of all plant spp. are
non-indigenous
• c. $250,000 on removing
non-native plants 1990-96
field
Oak savanna

35. Lessons learned… 13 years in the field
• (1) “one size does not fit all” when it comes
to assessing different management regimes
• (2) “ a multi-scale approach is essential” – if
you omit a scale, important habitat changes
will likely be missed
• (3) “change is slow” – some habitats may
respond to management over decades,
others more quickly

36. Method 1 - the deer exclosure 🐶

37. Rondeau vegetation plots:
- garlic mustard plots are orange
- Bennett and Gardiner exclosures
(1978) are red
- deer exclosures (19911994) are
blue
Carolinian Zone Plots

38. Deer herbivory plots were
integrated with new plots in
the prescribed burn blocks
to determine plant
community response to
prescribed burns.
Black points are additional
oak savanna plots
(2000-2001)

39. Permanent plots in prescribed burn
blocks – Pinery Provincial Park
• In 2000 the circled
areas were burned
• Pinery has many
burn blocks
• We added dozens
of plots to our
existing (1994)
deer exclosure
plots

40. Carolinian Zone: Point Pelee National
Park
Garlic mustard transects (15
transects)
Red cedar savanna plots (4
sites)
Oak savanna plots (10
transects)

41. Sometimes, you get lucky - there were also two “large” deer
exclosures (40 x 60 m) in Rondeau (Gardiner Bennett)
built in 1978

42. Method 2: the indicator species
Koh et al. 2010

43. Method 3: winter measurements

44. White-tailed deer Winter Browsing
• Deer eat current
annual growth or
next year’s leaves
of deciduous
species
• Over time, high
deer browsing, kills
understorey shrubs

45. Rondeau deer
exclosure built in
1978 seen in 1995
Out side, the
canopy is more
open and the
native forest
flowers are gone

46. Firanski Bazely: The deer feedback

47. Method 4: air photos
• Effects of deer
browsing can be seen
from air
• Green patches =
canopy gaps
• Measured in 1955
(right), 1972 and 1978
• Carrie Firanski MSc thesis, YorkU

48. Forest gaps vs. deer numbers
The percentage of gaps (open forest area):
1955 (24%) -1972 (26%)-1978 (30.5%) from air
photos
260
270
280
290
300
310
320
330
340
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
deer number
gapha
y = .213x + 251.132, r2 = .998
gap ha

49. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

50. Are Carolinian plant communities restored by
deer management burning?
• 2006 - Rick Hornsby at Rondeau
– Some non-native species declined, and Trillium returned but
a long-term lag effects of tree loss still, in 2009

51. Plant species richness in Pinery PP oak
savanna with deer control burning
Cecilia Tagliavia MSc. See also Etwell
http://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/6353
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80 additional BS BWS
BWS
BS
PIN2000
PIN1999
PIN1994
Speciesrichness(#ofspecies)
Area (m
2
)
Speciesrichness(cumulative#)

52. Adaptive Management…
• … common sense…
• … but difficult to implement…
• … because it emphasizes uncertainty, and
the need to constantly be learning about the
way that a natural system behaves, and
“tweaking” the management approaches
used

53. Time frames...
• Habitat recovery is often slow in forests…
• Rondeau PP: individual plant species
surviving in deer-grazed areas responded quite
fast to repeated herd reductions from 1993 to
early 2000s period (despite political pressure)

54. Restoration needs a multi-scale approach
• But total plant community ecosystem
shifts towards more native species only
happened by 2003-09 (nearly 10 year later)
• we spent years figuring why plant
community responses were slow…
• … and did an unanticipated study of forest
light levels…

55. If shade is increased will the missing species grow?

56. Ecosystem change is often slow
• At Point Pelee NP, cottages were steadily removed
from the park for restoration from the 1960s to the
present time
• We assessed cottage sites 1994-95 but didn’t see
major species richness change until 2009
– (MacLachlan and Bazely 2001, 2003 Conservation Biology
Biological Conservation)

57. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

58. Negative Unexpected Restoration
Results
• As the Rondeau shrub
understorey recovered
from high deer
numbers, cottage
garden escapes like
Japanese barberry
spread widely
• This wasn’t predicted
in 1993...

59. Should eradication of non-
natives be a restoration goal?
• NO – it’s rarely
achieved
• Reducing cover
should be a goal
• Over time, native
plants their soil
microbiomes can
evolve to bite back
to compete with
introduced species
http://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/18114

60. Positive Unexpected Restoration
Results
• Oak savanna
species like Carex
pensylvanica
spread in the more
open forest…
• 30% of Rondeau,
previously closed-
canopy forest is
now managed as
oak savanna with
prescribed fire

61. Saewan Koh’s PhD thesis model

62. Evidence-based restoration:
• Count things properly and analyze the
data…we can all have quantitative data
• Repeat measurements
• Be prepared to change modify
management
• There will always be unexpected changes in
the plant community (Klotzli and Grootjans 2001)

63. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

64. Citizen Science
• New technologies
allow citizens to
play a role more
easily than ever in
Habitat
Restoration
Species Recovery
• They complement
older techniques

66. Documenting Biodiversity
Ontario Bioblitz: Citizen Science
• https://twitter.com/OntarioBioblitz

67. Map of talk ☕
• The Big Picture its Consequences
– the Biodiversity Crisis
• Responses – Habitat Restoration
• Our Carolinian Zone – Black Oak Savanna
• Can we restore lost degraded habitat?
• A role for Citizen Science gardeners

68. Habitat Restoration Gardening
• Gardeners can be educated by Citizen
Scientist neighbours to favour native black
oak savanna species
✖ ✔

69. Habitat Restoration Gardening
• Gardeners can be educated by Citizen
Scientist neighbours to favour native black
oak savanna species
✖ ✖

70. Habitat Restoration Gardening
• Ontario has many native plant gardening
resources
– https://twitter.com/OIPC1
– https://twitter.com/rbg_science
– https://twitter.com/tnanps
✖
%
✔
%

71. Carolinian Canada
Go Wild, Grow Wild – London ON 2016
• https://caroliniancanada.ca/grow-wild/use-natural-gardening-techniques

72. Habitat Restoration Gardening
✖ ✔

73. Acknowledgements
• This work was supported by many agencies:
federal, provincial, municipal, and NGO,
over the years.
• York University supported many students.
• The ideas presented here were developed in
collaboration with many professors,
conservation professionals and citizen
scientists.