 Our last speaker for this morning is Seth Jones. Seth is a fishing and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at North Dakota Ecological Service Field Office. He received his bachelor's degree in zoology from North Dakota State University in 2017 and his master's degree in NRM from NDSU in 2021 where he conducted research on wetland conditions and plant community composition in the prairie pothole region. Seth's talk is cool season invasive grasses driving compositions of prairie pothole region wetlands. So let's welcome Seth. All right, well, thank you guys for the introduction. Can you, everybody hear me all right? Okay, well, Esben kind of stole my joke about my voice putting people to sleep, but yeah. So today I'm gonna be talking about some of my grad school research that I conducted here at NDSU. First off, I wanna give a special thanks to everybody who helped me out with this research. So Dr. Keiser, Brea and Cammie and then NDSU just for providing me all the resources I needed along the way in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for funding this research. So I'm just gonna jump straight into the study objectives. So first off, we just want to provide some insight onto the overall plant community composition of temporary and seasonal wetlands on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service feed title lands. So the entire study was done on feed title lands. We wanted to see what species were occurring on the landscape, what were our most abundant species, what were our most commonly found species. And then we wanted to look in a little bit more detail at those plant communities and determine what the overall drivers of those plant communities were. So looking at those patterns within the plant communities to see what's actually driving change within those wetland plant communities. And lastly, we just wanted to provide a base of information that could be used to help assist U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for their future adaptive management plans and specifically if they plan for adaptive management plans for their wetlands in the near future, hopefully with all the data that we collected from this that'll provide a good base for that management plan. So everybody here is probably pretty familiar with the Prairie Pothole region, makes up a pretty significant portion of the Northern Great Plains formed during the last glacial retreat and now characterized by millions of relatively small depressional wetlands on the landscape. Those wetlands are broken down into what we call our wetland classifications. That includes anything from ephemeral wetlands which aren't necessarily considered wetlands all the way up to our permanently potted wetlands. For this, we are just looking at temporary and seasonal wetlands. Those temporary wetlands are pretty small wetlands ranging from anywhere from a couple meters across all the way up to around an acre. So seasonal wetlands are a little bit larger. Temporary wetlands tend to only be inundated by water into the spring and maybe for several days after heavy rainfall events. They are known for having two vegetation zones and the seasonal wetlands, they'll be inundated by water well into the summer sometimes even into the fall on certain occasions. They have three different vegetation zones. And part of the reason we are looking at these wetlands specifically is because for one, they're the most abundant wetland type that we have here in the region. But also those temporary and seasonal wetlands are known for being particularly a disturbance prone whether it's cultivation or climate change, any of those sort of factors, certain parts of the prairie pothole region we've actually lost up to 90% of our temporary and seasonal potholes. So now looking at land management, particularly just for these Fish and Wildlife Service fee title lands, so those fee title lands, I'm sure everybody's familiar with them, they're the National Wildlife Refuges and WPAs. All of our work for this study was actually done on just WPAs, I believe. But the way a lot of these lands look today reflects how they were when they were acquired to some extent. So some were acquired as native prairie back in the day, I think dating all the way back into the 1930s, but a lot of them were actually cultivated at some point in time and had to be reseeded or reconstructed back into the perennial grassland that you see there today. I'd like to point out just that these reseeding efforts, a lot of the time, they were just the uplands that were being reseeded, the wetlands themselves weren't actually being reseeded on these lands. And early management often focused on reseeding these lands, whether it's by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the previous landowner for like other, for whether it for grazing or dense nesting cover for waterfall, which often included introduced species and lots of times these lands were left idle for many years at a time, but obviously as we've heard today, a lot more of these efforts have improved and they now focus more on species diversity and ecological integrity. Another thing I'd like to point out just these lands, most of them aren't large parcels of native prairie, they're these small parcels of grassland on the landscape that might be checkerboarded with native prairie, some perennial reseeded grassland and agriculture, sometimes they're very small tracks that are completely surrounded by agriculture. And then just looking at the plant community composition differences for these native or reseeder wetlands. And again, I'm just gonna say reseeded wetlands because it's a lot easier than saying reseeded or wetlands that are on reseeded grassland every single time, but like I said, they weren't actually often reseeded themselves. So the wetlands and the native prairie, pretty much every study that's looked at comparing the two have found that wetlands and native prairie tend to have a lot higher species reached richness than their reseeded counterparts. And then those restored or reseeded wetlands tend to have a lot higher abundance of invasive species and therefore with higher abundance, you get a reduction in native diversity and native cover overall. So here's our study area. We had 200 different wetland sites that we visited. Specifically, I'd like to point out all those purple shaded areas, those are the US Fish and Wildlife Service fee title lands. You can see there's quite a bit of it on the landscape and every single one of these sites are done on these lands. So one of the points of this study was to do research like this on a region wide landscape. So you can see our sites range all the way down from southeastern South Dakota up into Northwestern North Dakota. So for the overall study design, we had 250 sites that were used. We had 200 primary sites and those were 100 seasonal and 100 temporary as classified by the National Wetlands Inventory. And then we had 25 of each that were oversample sites and those oversample sites were only to be used if those primary sites were deemed unsuitable for the study. Some examples of when they'd be deemed unsuitable as just lack of access such as if they were completely surrounded by private land and there was no way we could get onto that WPA or if a lot of times the National Wetland Inventory isn't perfect. So might say it was a temporary wetland, we'd get out there and there's actually no wetland there at all or go in the other direction, might say it was a seasonal wetland, we'd get out there as obviously more permanently ponded. So we only wanted to use seasonal and temporary wetlands. And then we actually rather than 100 of each we ended up with 141 seasonal wetlands and 59 temporary. And that's because the field crews, so basically myself and Dr. Kaiser, we had the ultimate, the final say in determining what that wetland classification actually was and we based that on number of vegetation zones present. So if there were three vegetation zones present we classified it as a seasonal wetland. If there were two vegetation zones present we classified it as a temporary wetland. And then to look more in depth at our plant communities we use the index of plant community integrity which is a plant species-based IBI which was developed for the region specifically. It's a condition assessment method. And the reason we use that because for the other part of my research which I won't get into but if you wanna talk to me about it afterwards that's fine, we looked at the conditions of these wetlands but also it uses a quadrat method which collects species cover data which could be used for the analysis that we wanted to do. And then you collect cover data on those primary species at the site but you're also collecting or recording secondary species at the site and those secondary species are any species that are found within or not within between but not within the quadrats. And then just to test for significant differences between those receded and native prairie wetland plant communities we use multi-response permutation procedure and then to look for the drivers of plant community composition we use non-metric multidimensional scaling and we separated out plant communities for that by both wetland classification and vegetation zones. So an example would be wet meadow zone of temporary wetlands or shallow marsh of seasonal wetlands would be considered its own plant community that we were looking at for that. So here's that quadrat method that we were using. So for the low prairie area we had eight quadrats for the wet meadow area there were seven quadrats for the shallow marsh we use five quadrats. For those outer zones they were evenly placed around the wetland and tried to have them centered within that zone and then for the innermost zone so the shallow marsh for seasonal wetlands and wet meadow for temporary wetlands you started more near the outside of that zone and you worked your way in a spiraling fashion to get the best representation of the overall cover in that zone. All right, so getting off into the beginning of our results. So just looking at species frequency overall so this is species as they're appearing either as primary or secondary species we identified 348 species over the course of the study at the 200 different wetland sites. Most of those species were occurring infrequently. So these were the 25 species that were found at at least 50% of the wetland sites that we visited. As you can see quite a few of those species are introduced species. And I wanted to point out those top four species particularly because the four most commonly found species were all introduced species and that was our Canada thistle, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth brolman field south thistle all found at least 90% of the wetland sites that we visited. And then in fact, Canada thistle and Kentucky bluegrass we actually found in at least some capacity at every single wetland site that we visited most often in that low prairie area. So just looking at comparing those native and reseeded areas, seeing if our results aligned with previous research on basically they did four out of the five plant communities that we tested they were significantly different for the plant communities between the native and reseeded grasslands. The only one where it was not significantly different was the low prairie of temporary wetlands. Just to give you guys a very brief overview of what that plant community composition actually looked like. So this is that temporary low prairie the only one which was not significantly different and showing those dominant invasive species. So the two cool season invasive grasses of the average relative cover at sites for smooth brolman Kentucky bluegrass as well as other introduced species, native graminoids, native forbs and native trees and shrubs. You can see there all the way across the board things did not look that much different. The biggest difference there is the cover in smooth brome between the reseeded and the native wetlands but smooth brome still had say pretty high cover at the both the reseeded and the native prairie wetlands over 30% average relative cover for both. Whereas we look at the temporary wet meadow which was significantly different between the two you can see it's pretty obvious the differences there. This time the dominant species was reed canary grass a lot higher cover at those reseeded wetlands and then our native graminoids tended to have a lot higher cover at those native prairie wetlands. So now looking at our seasonal wetlands overall so seasonal low prairie was considered significantly different overall when you look at it this way it doesn't actually appear that difference the biggest difference that I'm seeing here anyways is those other introduced species like our Canada thistle or quack grass things like that. There is a twice as much in the reseeded wetlands as there are in the native wetlands but then when we look at our seasonal wet meadow again you're seeing that major difference between the reseeded and the native especially for that dominant invasive species and those native graminoids and then looking at our seasonal shallow marsh area we're seeing that same thing this time the dominant invasive species not a cool season invasive grass it's a hybrid cattail instead but you're seeing those same differences there. All right getting into our non-metric multi-dimensional scaling analysis. So for every plant community that we tested NMS produce three axes to help explain the variation that's going on within the plant community. I think the three axes combined for each plant community explained about 70 to 85% of the variation that was going on in the data set and then axis one always explained the most variation that was going on the data set ranged anywhere from about 26 to 43% axis two explain the second most axis three explain the least amount of variation in the data set and then in order for a species to be significantly correlated with that axis it had to have a correlation coefficient with an absolute value of 0.4 or greater the closer that absolute value is to one the more significant that correlation the closer it is to zero the less correlated it is with that axis and these are all the species that were correlated significantly correlated with at least one of the axes for temporary wetlands. I won't go through all the species I just want to point out two in particular and that is our smooth brome with the low axis one of the low prairie and reed canary grass with axis one of the wet meadow. Like I said axis one is explaining the most variation that's going on in the data set. We were looking at it when we were looking at it originally we were more so looking for patterns within these plant communities similarities and species that were aligned on these axes to help explain the variation was going on there and we didn't find that at least not for axis one or any of these data sets. Instead we found that axis one appeared to be controlled by the cover of these dominant invasive species and just to show you that correlation why it is so significantly correlated with axis one. So this is temporary wetlands in the low prairie with smooth brome that central graph there each one of those symbols represents a wetland site and that the size of the symbol reflects the relative abundance of that species at the wetland site. So you can see it's fairly obvious there along axis one on that left hand side those sites have a lot higher abundance on the right hand side. Those sites have a lot lower abundance. It's more obvious here when we're looking at reed canary grass those sites on the left hand side have a very high abundance and when you're looking at that right hand side there's very low abundance. So that's why we're seeing such a significant correlation there. So now looking at those seasonal wetlands. So again, we're seeing that exact same thing here. Axis one explains the most variation and axis one appears to be controlled almost completely by the abundance of those dominant invasive species. So they seem to really be driving whatever variation is going on with axis one for the plant community data sets. And again, just looking at those figures there, very obvious when you're looking at them this way, why there's such a significant correlation with those species. All right, so just getting into conclusions and our takeaways now. So looking at the species frequency and what species overall we had appearing on the landscape, those most commonly found species, unfortunately we're all introduced species, at least those four most commonly found the Canada thistle, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth brome and South thistle. We did have some native species which were occurring very frequently, but they were all species which are known to be able to handle a little bit higher levels of disturbance. And our biggest takeaway from this, I believe just looking at the regional area and the regional diversity in general is a lot of the regional diversity is being found at a very small percentage of the wetlands that were actually being surveyed. So these good condition native prairie wetlands are harboring a disproportionate amount of the overall plant species biodiversity that we have on the landscape. So they're very important for the overall biodiversity that we have most of those poor condition wetlands that we are seeing out there. We're seeing the same species over and over again and it was in these good condition native prairie areas where we were seeing most of our diversity and seeing our infrequently occurring species. So similar to mostly or all the other studies that have looked at the comparison between the native and the reseeded areas, four out of our five plant communities that we tested were significantly different for that native and the reseeded wetlands. So with all the management and everything that's going on, obviously those upland areas are a lot more diverse with the updated management regimes that we have now but the wetlands in particular still are not seeming to closely resemble the native prairie areas. And our dominant invasive species appear to be playing a very significant role, maybe even a larger role than we expected in shaping the overall plant communities that we have in these wetlands. And so overall the plant community composition appears to be the most significant driver for that plant community composition appears to be the abundance of those dominant invasive species. So that'd be smooth brome for the low prairie, reed canary grass for the wet meadow and hybrid cat tail for the shallow marsh. A lot of other literature has proved that these species are in fact a problem. Obviously that's what we're here for. It's what we've been talking about this whole conference and a lot of studies have been shown that these species are highly correlated with reduction in native diversity and native species cover. But I guess we're kind of taking it one step further and saying that these species are ultimately responsible for a significant proportion of the change that's going on within these plant communities. One reason why we think that especially is because these species were showing the same level of influence regardless of the vegetation zone that they were in and regardless of their means of colonization for that site. So smooth brome a lot of times was actually planted in some of these areas or at least nearby in some of these areas. So it's obvious why to some people why there might be really high covers of smooth brome at some of these sites, but our reed canary grass or hybrid cat tail had to rely usually on more natural means of colonization to get into these areas. But we were seeing that same trend with all of these plant communities, regardless of this. There's always gonna be different factors affecting whether these species are there in the first place. Like I said, they might have been planted there. They might be near agricultural land where those species can easily come in and colonize those areas. But either way, they are driving a significant proportion of that plant community composition change. And one thing we are noticing is that once they're established, they're often reaching very high relative covers at these sites. Some of the sites they had near 100% relative cover and they were out competing all other species that were there native and introduced species alike. We were seeing some species such as Kentucky bluegrass where it appeared that it was being out competed by other the dominant invasive species such as smooth brome. So in order to get a better grasp on the plant communities and what's actually driving the change. So continued monitoring is gonna be very important for that. We have this base of information now. We have, we know the wetland sites that we visited be very important to go back and look at these sites after some point to see if these plant communities have changed more over time. And that might help us get a better understanding of why and if there are any other drivers that are present. And then especially after these lands are acquired and reseeded with all the diverse native seed mix that we have now will be good to continue. It sounds like we are monitoring them now especially to look at when and if these dominant invasive species are getting back into those areas and at what point or what's influencing them for taking over like we saw in many of these wetlands. And then one thing I really wanted to emphasize like I said, mostly the uplands were being reseeded in these areas. The wetlands were not actually being reseeded with native wetland species. So restoration of these lands should be including reseeding the wetlands as well with native species if we really want to see a lot of diversity in these reseeded prairie wetlands. And everybody has been saying this the whole conference but you can't always emphasize it enough that we need to prioritize this invasive species control. And I would say focusing on the reduction and prevention of spread into these native areas should be the highest priority because like I said those native prairie areas the good condition wetlands are really harboring a disproportionate amount of the overall species biodiversity that we have on the landscape. So if those areas get heavily invaded and we see the same trends that we were seeing in a lot of these other wetlands with a reduction in overall species diversity that will not be good on a landscape scale for biodiversity. That's all I have. Are there any questions?