(1100-34) The Missouri Western State University’s John Rushin Teaching and Research Prairie: a three-year survey of native vs. invasive plant species’ success after seeding and first controlled burn management.
Undergraduate Student Missouri Western State University Saint Joseph, Missouri
Body of Abstract: Prairies historically covered over 400,000 square-miles of North America. As consequence of land use change prairie coverage substantially declined. In recent years, the scientific focus on prairie restoration has increased, establishing the basis of science-informed management practices. Missouri Western State University has become a championing institution of on-site prairie restoration in Missouri, restoring a 26-acre campus plot to a conservation prairie. The John Rushin Teaching and Research Prairie today serves as model prairie ecosystem designed to facilitate scientific research and applied learning. Our work, as part of a long-term ecological and eco-physiological study framework, focused on an initial, two-year survey of emerging prairie vegetation after the initial seeding in the beginning of 2020, and the relationship between emerging native species and invasive species, and changes in the vegetation composition following a controlled burn management in the third year, in 2023. We found, that in its first two years after seeding, only a proportion of the seeded prairie vegetation emerged successfully, while invasives and noxious weeds were represented by a large number of species. About 60% of the emerging vegetation cover were native species, and 40% non-native. 50% of all identified species are weeds, 14% of which are noxious weeds. Of all identified species about 24% were grasses, and 27% belong to the Asteraceae (Daisy) family. Post-burn, we recorded an increased proportion of native species (75%) and emergence of new, originally seeded species for the first time. Further prairie management and successful competition between prairie species and invasives is expected to alter species composition in the following years, potentially shifting towards a higher success of native prairie species vs. invasives. Planned differential management practices, launching in 2024, on the surveyed plots are expected to reveal best-fit management practices to ensure native success and conservation, in the following years.