Plant community response during establishment of woodland silvopasture in the Missouri Ozarks
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Disturbance-mediated oak (Quercus spp.) woodlands were formerly a prevalent community type in Missouri, and their restoration is a key objective of land management agencies and conservation organizations. Over one-third of wooded land in Missouri (2 million ha) is owned by farmers, with at least 0.92 million ha being grazed by livestock. Continuous forest grazing can have detrimental ecological impacts, but there is limited knowledge on restoring unmanaged woodlands using silvopasture, an agroforestry practice in which trees, forages, and livestock are intentionally integrated and intensively managed. This project established baseline data and evaluated the impact of restoration management practices (midstory removal, prescribed fire, seeding native forages) on plant community composition and structure during one year of woodland silvopasture establishment in the Missouri Ozarks. Midstory removal (stems [less than or equal to] 25 cm diameter at breast height) significantly increased graminoid abundance (+2.27 percent; P = 0.035) and reduced canopy cover (-4.66 percent; P [less than] 0.001), and the combination of prescribed fire and midstory removal was significant to reducing canopy cover (-5.00 percent; P [less than] 0.001) and midstory density (-89 percent; P [less than] 0.001), with numerical increases in forb abundance (+5.42 percent) and reductions in shrub abundance (-9.90 percent). Our seeding treatment had no effect, but was conducted late in the season with germination likely compromised.
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M.S.