Excavating agriculturally-accrued sediment from wetland basins is an increasingly common restoration technique worldwide, but the impacts on recruiting native plant communities are unknown. Multiple agencies developed a wetland monitoring protocol to document how restoring hydrology and removing excess sediment impacted hydrology and plant assemblages both before and up to 6 years after wetland restorations in North American prairie potholes. Our results indicated that the excavated basins had marginally greater probabilities of increased total standing water, habitat interspersion, and relative plant diversity, as well as lower probabilities of having invasive plants and hybrid cattails (Typha  × glauca), when compared to unexcavated basins. By year 4, the excavated basins had 50% probability of extensive cattail invasion, whereas the unexcavated basins had 85% probability of cattails. However, the benefits from excavation were typically negated by invasive species and cattail encroachment within 3–6 years of post-restoration. Therefore, the vegetation communities may benefit from sediment excavations that are also coupled with targeted management within the first few years to combat invasion. This long-term monitoring program could be continued and revised to include post-restoration management activities (e.g., seeding, invasive species control techniques, and prescribed fire) using an adaptive management framework to provide prompt feedback to managers regarding the relative efficacy of alternative post-restoration management.

中文翻译：

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泥沙开挖作为湿地恢复技术对发展中的植被群落产生了早期影响

在全球范围内，从湿地盆地中挖掘农业积累的沉积物是一种越来越普遍的修复技术，但对招募本地植物群落的影响尚不清楚。多个机构制定了湿地监测规程，以记录恢复北美草原坑洼地湿地恢复之前和之后六年的水文状况和清除多余沉积物如何影响水文和植物群落。我们的结果表明，这些开垦盆地的总静水量增加，生境散布和相对植物多样性的可能性略高，而入侵植物和杂种香蒲（香蒲  ×  glauca）的可能性较低。），与未开凿的盆地相比。到第4年，开挖的盆地有香蒲广泛入侵的可能性为50％，而未开挖的盆地有香蒲可能性为85％。但是，在恢复后的3-6年内，侵入性物种和香蒲的入侵通常抵消了开挖带来的好处。因此，植被群落可能会受益于沉积物开挖，在最初的几年内还结合有针对性的管理来对抗入侵。可以继续并修订此长期监视程序，以使用自适应管理框架将恢复后的管理活动（例如播种，入侵物种控制技术和指定的火灾）包括在内，以向经理提供有关替代职位的相对效力的及时反馈恢复管理。