Restoration of prairie ecosystems in face of plant invasion

Illustration of restoration
Picture: Michael Wohlwend

Scientific investigators from our group:

Michael Wohlwend, Tiffany Knight, Aldo Compagnoni

Main collaborators:

Michele R. Schutzenhofer, Harald Auge (PAC), Nico Eisenhauer (PAC), Felix May (PAC), Madhav Kumar (PAC), Andrea Westerband (Hawaii), Kasey Barton (Hawaii), Dylan Craven (Pacific Invaders), Patrick Weigelt (Pacific Invaders), Hanno Seebens (Pacific Invaders)

About the project:

We mainly work on the North American Prairie, where we deal with the restoration of degraded ecosystems with agricultural background in face of the invasion of aggressive exotic plant invaders. Our research focus is a long time large scale experiment dealing with the suppression of Lespedeza cuneata, a legume from east Asia located in the Tyson Research Center of the Washington University of St. Louis, MO. We investigate how and to what extend priority effects and fertilization effect the species as well as the community.

Preliminary results show that the treatments are very promising to support prairie restoration and invasion prevention.

Side projects deal with potentially invasive species in the Pacific region, especially Hawaii & Southern Germany.

Publications:

Nico Frischbier, Christoph Damm, Michael Wohlwend, Gregor Aas, Sven Wagner: Zur Naturverjüngung der Westlichen Hemlocktanne (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.) in Kleinbeständen in Thüringen. Forstarchiv 88 (2017), p.131-135