Monitoring Lake Ontario coastal wetland vegetation dynamics under a new water-level regulation plan

Session: Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands: Innovative Research to Improve Restoration (2)

Greg Grabas, Canadian Wildlife Service, [email protected]

Abstract

Water-level regulation in Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence River began in 1960 and has been linked to the proliferation of cattails and loss of biodiversity in Lake Ontario coastal wetlands.  A review of the regulation plan occurred in response to these environmental concerns and dissatisfaction among stakeholders.  In January 2017, a new plan was implemented with the potential to improve the condition of coastal wetlands around the lake, and could represent one of the broadest coastal wetland restoration efforts in the world.  The Canadian Wildlife Service developed and implemented a method to monitor changes to the vegetation communities (e.g., meadow marsh, emergent) within Lake Ontario coastal wetlands.  For each study wetland, 8-12 transects spanned an elevation gradient ranging from approximately 80 cm below to 120 cm above the shoreline.  Along each transect, vegetation within a 1m x 0.5m quadrat was surveyed at 20 cm elevation increments and were located using a real-time kinematic global positioning system.  These data are being used to: 1. monitor the elevation range occupied by various vegetation communities; 2. provide data to calibrate a model to predict vegetation community changes in response to the new regulation plan; and 3. validate the predictive model.