Digital Commons Network^™

Long Term Monitoring Of Grand Ravines Park Restoration: An Authentic Research Opportunity For Jenison High School Students And Beyond, Karina C. White

Culminating Experience Projects

Access to authentic research is limited at the 7-12 science education level. At the same time, many local restoration projects would benefit from, but don’t have access to a long-term system of monitoring. This project seeks to unite those two needs by developing a protocol for 7-12 classrooms to be able to participate in authentic research through long-term monitoring of a local restoration project. The protocol developed in this project was used by Jenison High School students at Grand Ravines Park. Grand Ravines Park is a recently acquired Ottawa County park with a history of anthropogenic disturbances. Shortly after the …

Carbon Sequestration In A Restored West Michigan Oak Savanna: Implications For Management Practices, Jeffrey A. Heise

Masters Theses

The savanna system is an ecosystem (i.e. a transitional ecosystem) that lies between forest and grassland ecosystems. They occur across the world in various forms, but in the North American Midwest they are specifically oak savannas: systems where the open overstory is dominated by various species of oak (Quercus spp.) and the understory consists of carbon-rich prairie grasses and forbs. This ecosystem is a highly degraded ecosystem and has lost almost 99% of its former range due to agriculture and fire suppression. Since savannas are fire-evolved systems, they are maintained by and require fire as a regular disturbance to …

Impacts Of Shoreline Restoration And Source Of Nutrient Enrichment On Macrophytes And Epiphytic Algal Communities, Paige Marie Kleindl

Masters Theses

Macrophytes and their epiphytic algal communities are integral for optimizing littoral ecosystem functioning in lakes. Epiphytic algae’s placement on the plant’s surface can reduce light and nutrient availability (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) for the host macrophyte. Macrophyte and epiphytic algal proximity complicates these primary producer group interactions and responses to bioavailable nutrients in the water column or porewater. For example, epiphytic algae may have a competitive advantage over surface water nutrients compared to macrophytes, which may have a competitive advantage over porewater nutrients via root systems.

Muskegon Lake’s industrial history and designation as an Area of Concern prompted shoreline restoration, …

Effects Of Fire Season And Temperature On A Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea Stoebe) Infested Grassland, Zachery T. Pitman

Masters Theses

Invasive species, including the non-native forb Centaurea stoebe (spotted knapweed), constitute an imminent threat to degraded and restored native prairies. Considering the major threat that C. stoebe poses to imperiled prairie ecosystems, I examined the effectiveness of fire as a control agent of C. stoebe and (±)-catechin. I conducted a 2-year experiment in part of a restored tallgrass prairie community at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in Barry County, Michigan between May and August of 2016 and 2017. My experiment consisted of individually burning 60 1-m² plots with a propane torch to achieve high (316° C) and low (103° C) temperatures …

The Initial Effects Of Community Variables On Sand Prairie Restoration: Species Establishment And Community Responses, Robert Christopher Roos

Masters Theses

We established a sand prairie restoration experiment in northern Lower Michigan’s pine-oak barrens to analyze the effect of different community variables (vegetative cover, species richness, biomass, diversity, and floristic quality) when comparing: (1) how our restoration efforts (seeded treatments) compare to natural community succession (control plots), (2) how different seeding treatments affect these community variables, specifically when evaluating (2a) the effect of grass seeding densities; and (2b) the effect of different forb guilds (early flowering, late flowering, and legumes) during the initial two growing seasons of restoration establishment. In general, a comparison between seeded treatments and non-seeded control treatments indicates …

Wetland Sediment Nutrient Flux In Response To Proposed Hydrologic Reconnection And Climate Warming, James T. Smit

Masters Theses

Wetland restoration and creation are common practices, but wetlands restored or created on former agricultural land may act as a source of nutrients, rather than as a sink. I studied P sediment-water exchange in two flooded celery fields (west and east), which are designated for wetland restoration, in order to assess the effects that hydrologic reconnection of the area to an adjacent creek would have on P dynamics. We also examined the influence of climate change, specifically warming temperatures, by conducting the sediment-water exchange experiments at ambient and plus 2°C temperature conditions. Lab-based sediment core incubations revealed that TP release …