Comparison of methods for revegetation of vehicle tracks in High Arctic tundra on Svalbard

Erica Neby,Philipp Semenchuk,Magne Neby,Elisabeth J. Cooper

doi:10.1139/as-2021-0016

Abstract

Natural regeneration after anthropogenic disturbance is slow in the tundra biome, but assisted regeneration can help speed up this process. A tracked off-road vehicle damaged a High Arctic dwarf shrub heath in Svalbard in May 2009, drastically reducing the vegetation cover, soil seed banks, and incoming seed rain. We assisted regeneration the following year using six different revegetation treatments and monitored their effects one month, and one and eight years after their application. By 2018, all treatments still had lower vegetation cover and limited species composition than the undamaged reference vegetation. The fertiliser treatment was the most effective in restoring vegetation cover (71% vegetation cover, of which 62% were bryophytes and 38% were vascular plant species). Compared to the reference plots (98% vegetation cover, of which 32% were bryophytes and 66% were vascular plant species), the composition of the disturbed vegetation was still far from regenerated to its original state nine years after the tracks were made. The slow regrowth demonstrated in this study underlines the importance of avoiding the disturbance of fragile tundra and implementing and upholding regulations that restrict or ban such disturbances.

Highlights

Natural regeneration in cold-dominated ecosystems is slow (Babb and Bliss 1974; Forbes and Jefferies 1999; Forbes et al 2001), rendering the landscape less resilient to anthropogenic disturbance (Rickard and Brown 1974; Komarkova 1983; Walker and Walker 1991; Urbanska and Chambers 2002; Krautzer et al 2012)
2010), the permutation test of the constraining term treatment/reference in the correspondence analysis (CCA) analysis is highly significant when the reference vegetation is included in the analysis (p < 0.001), i.e
When removing the reference vegetation term from the analysis (Fig. S6), the treatment term is not significant anymore (p = 0.992), i.e., the species composition does not differ across the treatments within the vehicle tracks

Summary

Introduction

Natural regeneration in cold-dominated ecosystems is slow (Babb and Bliss 1974; Forbes and Jefferies 1999; Forbes et al 2001), rendering the landscape less resilient to anthropogenic disturbance (Rickard and Brown 1974; Komarkova 1983; Walker and Walker 1991; Urbanska and Chambers 2002; Krautzer et al 2012). It took up to 75 years to re-establish complete vegetation cover after removing mesic above-ground vegetation, roots and soil in northern Alaska (Forbes et al 2001). It might take several hundred years or more for a disturbed area to return to its original vegetation composition after disturbance, if at all, and plant diversity might still be lower than in undisturbed areas (Komarkova 1983; Forbes and Jefferies 1999). Since the 1950s, regulations have severely restricted their use with general rules and establishing protected areas where they are banned. More than 60% of the land on Svalbard is currently protected, and the use of vehicles is strictly regulated. A long history of coal mining and drilling (Theisen and Brude 1998) has left many historic vehicle tracks and other surface disturbances leading to linear or patchy scars on the tundra that may facilitate erosion, drainage and further expansion of the vegetation damage

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion