Evaluation of Techniques for Restoration of Disturbed Sites in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Ontl, Todd

Restoration of areas disturbed by human activities to late-seral plant communities is a primary goal of the National Park Service. Modern anthropic disturbances in Rocky Mountain National Park include the installation of utilities, construction or improvement of facilities, and the construction or removal of roads, trails, and parking lots. Approaches to restoring these disturbances include natural revegetation, seeding treatments, transplanting containerized material, or a combination thereof. The costs associated with these different approaches vary considerably, emphasizing the need for an evaluation of the cost effectiveness of these methods in the establishment of late-seral plant communities following disturbance. Data were collected on 20 pairs of disturbed and undisturbed sites in 2004 on lands within and adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park that had been treated with different restoration approaches. Treatments differed in effectiveness when evaluated with different criteria to judge restoration success. Plant cover data showed the highest cover values of native and perennial species on disturbed sites where containerized material was transplanted. Sites that were seeded and transplanted showed no differences compared to undisturbed sites in cover of native perennial grasses, while transplanted sites showed no differences in native perennial forb cover. No differences were detected between treatments for richness of native, perennial, or annual species on disturbed sites. Community similarity between disturbed and undisturbed sites was highest for sites that