Long-Term Development and Ecosystem Functions of Restored Cranberry Bogs

This group of research projects investigates how key soil features and ecosystem functions change over time in sites that are developing under different management scenarios. Specifically, we compare the development of soil properties and functions associated with nitrogen cycling and greenhouse gas flux across sites that fall along a restoration trajectory across active cranberry farms, young retired farms, old retired farms, flooded former farms, ecologically restored former farms, and natural reference wetlands with no history of cranberry farming. Results of this work inform not only our understanding of how ecosystems develop and function over time under different hydrologic and management scenarios, but also informs the practice of restoration.

Recent Updates

Summer Soil Monitoring 2024

By Jason Andras on July 26, 2024
Throughout May and June of 2024 the Ballantine and Andras research groups from Mount Holyoke College collected and analyzed soil samples as part of an ongoing monitoring project. The project, funded by DER, aims to describe the long-term ecological development of soil physicochemical characteristics and to evaluate whether wetland functions are being successfully restored within a reasonable time frame. This year we sampled the restored sites of Garner Bog, Farley Bog, and Foothills Preserve, as these sites were all restored in 2021 and fell within our longitudinal monitoring plan of 0, 1, 3, 7, and 10 years post-restoration. Our results showed that none of the key physicochemical wetland soil indicators had changed significantly between years one and three, which is consistent with the slow initial post-restoration development of wetland soils that has been observed in numerous previous studies. Nonetheless, we did see plenty of evidence that these sites are beginning to develop as wetlands. For example, we observed lots of standing water, robust patches of sphagnum and other wetland obligate plants, and numerous places where sphagnum had begun to spread across bare patches of sand and gravel (photo below). We will continue to monitor these and other restored cranberry bogs to see if the pace of soil development accelerates in future years.

Contributors

Kate Ballantine
Principal Investigator
Jason Andras
Principal Investigator
Rachel Rubin
Researcher
Nia Bartolucci
Researcher
Erin Pierce
Researcher
Todd Anderson
Researcher

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