Vegetation restoration for open sandy habitats in the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada, using richness, rarity, coefficients of conservatism, the floristic quality index and a case study from the Pinhey Sand Dune

Abstract

A vegetation restoration procedure was developed for open sandy habitats in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario. It was designed to restore a pre-determined plant association and consisted of six steps: (1) determine the restoration objective and role of vegetation; (2) determine the potential natural vegetation of the restoration site based on survey of regional remnants resulting in a list of native species with an indication of their regional status and coefficients of conservatism; (3) determine what vegetation is present on the restoration site resulting in another list of native species with an indication of their regional status and coefficients of conservatism; (4) calculate a floristic quality index (FQI) for the restoration site; (5) based on the soil moisture at the site and the regional survey, develop a potential list, following introduction, of native species, rare native species, and a FQI for the potentially restored site; (6) complete restoration and monitor effectiveness using the target species richness, rare species richness and FQI. Details of these steps are outlined and an example of the process is provided.