Monitoring Wetland Restoration on the Wayne National Forest

Surveys conclude Wayne's wetlands are providing excellent habitat for wildlife and plants.

Chad Kirschbaum (Botanist) and Sarah Harrelson (volunteer and former WNF employee) reported on the quality of the Ironton District's wetlands at the Ohio Biological Survey's annual meeting this Saturday. They presented the results from vegetation monitoring completed this past summer using wetland quality assessment protocols created by the Ohio EPA.

This past spring, Chad Kirschbaum, Kari Kirschbaum and Becky Ewing choose 4 wetlands to study; 1 natural wetland and 3 restored wetlands. Sarah installed vegetation monitoring plots in each wetland and used Ohio's Vegetation Index of Biotic Integrity (VIBI) to score each wetland. VIBI is a multimetric index comprised of 10 metrics with a maximum score of 100 and a minimum score of 0. The VIBI score is calculated by summing the 10 metric scores. For emergent wetlands, these metrics include the number of Carex species, native dicot species, native wetland shrub species, hydrophyte species, the ratio of annual to perennial species, Floristic Quality Assessment score, relative cover of sensitive plant species, relative cover of tolerant plant species, relative cover of invasive graminoids and standing biomass.

The project was funded using $500 in grant funds from the Ohio Biological Survey, approximately $2200 of in-kind volunteer services from Harrelson and about $1500 from the WNF inventory and monitoring program. Harrelson contributed over 112 hours of field work and data analysis time to the project.

"The wetlands that we surveyed on the Wayne National Forest are providing excellent habitat for wildlife and plants" concluded Harrleson at the Ohio Biological Survey meeting on Saturday. Based on the analysis of the VIBI scores, the natural wetland Brushy Fork; and Superior Wetland, a restored wetland were ranked as "Wetland Habitat" which means they are functioning and healthy wetlands. Sand Fork and Symmes Creek restored wetlands ranked as "Restorable Wetland Habitat" which means management activities such as controlling water levels, seeding with native species and controlling invasive species could improve the quality of that habitat. The lower scores at Sand Fork and Symmes Creek are likely due to large areas of the wetland (include the areas sampled) being covered by water or by being covered by just a few dominant plant species.

Invasive species were also mapped and a complete census of plant species was compiled for each wetland. Though some invasive species were noted such as reed canary grass, (Phalaris arundinacea), Eurasian water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) and common niad (Najas major), these do not seem to be a major threat right now. "We hope to control these populations while they are still small" said Ironton District Wildlife Biologist, Kari Kirschbaum.

This summer a new wetland design was implemented by Forest Service Biologists, Kari Kirschbaum and Tom Biebighauser at Whitaker Wetland site which should improve upon the previous wetland designs by creating shallow pools of water and large areas of emergent vegetation. This design more closely mimics the hydrology of historic wetlands and will be easier to maintain. Because this design will have more area of exposed mudflats and emergent vegetation, it is expected that VIBI scores from this wetland will be higher than VIBI scores from previous wetland restorations.

Kirschbaum and Harrelson would like to follow-up this work by installing more of these plots on additional restored and natural wetlands on the Ironton Ranger District. The Wayne National Forest has restored 6 wetlands over the last 20 years. In Ohio, wetland restoration is important because over 90% of the state's original wetlands have been drained. Though they are rare, there are a few natural wetlands on the District and two of these, Sardis and Cambria Creek wetlands are protected by the Forest Management plan as Special Management Areas.