Coastal sandplains provide habitat for a suite of rare and endangered plant and wildlife species in the northeastern United States. These early successional plant communities were maintained by natural and anthropogenic disturbances including salt spray, fire, and livestock grazing, but over the last 150 years, a decrease in anthropogenic disturbance frequency and intensity has resulted in a shift towards woody shrub dominance at the expense of herbaceous taxa. This study quantified the effects of more than a decade of dormant season disturbance-based vegetation management (mowing and prescribed fire) on coastal sandplain plant community composition on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, USA. We used time-series plant cover data from two similar sites to evaluate the effectiveness of disturbance management for restoring herbaceous species cover and reducing woody shrub dominance. Our results indicate that applying management outside of the peak of the growing season has not been effective in maintaining or increasing the cover of herbaceous species. While management activities resulted in significant ( P < 0.01) increases in herbaceous species immediately after treatment, woody species recolonized and dominated treated sites within 3-years post treatment at the expense of graminoids and forbs. These results highlight the difficulties associated with directing ecological succession using disturbance-based management to maintain rare, herbaceous species in coastal sandplain systems that were once a prevalent landscape component under historically chronic anthropogenic disturbance. Further experimentation with growing season disturbance-based management and different combinations of management techniques could provide insights into management alternatives for maintaining herbaceous conservation targets in coastal sandplains.

中文翻译：

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美国马萨诸塞州楠塔基特岛稀有沿海沙平原割草和规定火力对植物群落结构和功能的影响

沿海沙平原为美国东北部的一系列珍稀濒危植物和野生动物提供栖息地。这些早期演替植物群落是由盐雾、火灾和牲畜放牧等自然和人为干扰维持的，但在过去 150 年中，人为干扰频率和强度的降低导致向木本灌木的优势转变，代价是草本分类群。这项研究量化了美国马萨诸塞州楠塔基特岛沿海沙平原植物群落组成的十多年基于休眠季节干扰的植被管理（割草和规定的火灾）的影响。我们使用来自两个相似地点的时间序列植物覆盖数据来评估干扰管理在恢复草本物种覆盖和减少木本灌木优势方面的有效性。我们的研究结果表明，在生长季节高峰之外进行管理并不能有效地维持或增加草本植物的覆盖率。虽然管理活动导致草本植物在处理后立即显着增加（P < 0.01），但木本植物在处理后 3 年内重新定殖并主导处理地点，而牺牲了禾本科植物和杂草。这些结果突出了使用基于干扰的管理来指导生态演替以维持稀有、沿海沙平原系统中的草本物种，曾经是历史上长期人为干扰下普遍存在的景观组成部分。对基于生长季节干扰的管理和管理技术的不同组合的进一步试验可以提供对维持沿海沙平原草本植物保护目标的管理替代方案的见解。