Within the province of Alberta, moisture availability whether from summer rain or winter snows, is one of the main drivers for determining grassland plant communities. Moisture is also critically important to the success or failure in the attempts to restore these grasslands following various types of disturbances. While increased moisture means more above ground biomass production, a correlation between increased moisture and successful restoration hasn�t followed the same trend. On native rangeland in Alberta, generally the drier the site is, the greater the likelihood of success at native species restoration. However, being too dry also creates restoration difficulties. Given that, there may be an optimum range of site moisture that�s leads to a greater restoration success rate. �A number of factors are thought to contribute to this, but one of the dominant factors is that native species are better able to compete under stressed growing conditions. This presentation will examine both successes and failures of native grassland restoration within environments with varying moisture levels and evaluate the some of the factors leading to this higher success rate on drier sites.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.