Published By US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior
Issued about 9 years ago
Summary
Description
Moistsoil management involves manipulating soil, seed banks, and hydrology topromote natural plant seed and tuber production for waterfowl forage. I evaluated vacuum sampling to estimate annual seed availability. On average, vacuum sampling recovered 88 CV 0.68 of known seed masses, and enabled efficient processing of samples .X 30.3 3 SE minsample. During falls 20012002, I evaluated methods to estimate seed availability in moistsoil habitats. Neither vacuumcollected nor seedtrap samples predicted availability of seeds or tubers in core samples r2 0.0030.18. Therefore, I used core sampling in fall 2002 to estimate mean seed and tuber biomass in managed moistsoil habitats in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley MA V which overall was 611 kgha, dry mass CV 24. Intensive management resulted in greatest seed and tuber biomass 1,184 kgha, CV 17. I recommend continued estimation of seed and tuber biomass in the MAV and evaluation of seedtuber production and costbenefits of management.