Abstract
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of riparian plant communities along a gradient of livestock exclusion in the Lower Columbia River Basin (LCRB) located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Livestock exclusion from riparian wetlands is a common passive restoration technique. Few studies, however, have focused on the effects of livestock grazing or the exclusion of livestock grazing on these ecosystems. Vegetation community composition was examined in two passive restoration sites, three and 13 years since livestock exclusion, and in a reference site with continued livestock grazing. We hypothesized native plant species richness would be lower in the excluded wetlands than in the grazed wetland due to the competitive exclusion from an increase in non-native plant dominance in the absence of grazing. The grazed wetland had significantly (P < 0.02) greater mean total species richness (23.3 ± 1.6; mean ± 1 standard error), native (10.2 ± 0.5), and non-nati...
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