Major
Environmental Science
Anticipated Graduation Year
2021
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Hybrid cattail (Typha x glauca) threatens native plant species in Great Lakes coastal wetlands and can impact belowground conditions and processes. I hypothesize that soil seed bank and microbial diversity decrease along a gradient of time-since-invasion by Typha. I collected soil samples a Typha-invaded wetland. The extant plant community was significantly different in areas invaded for over 20 years compared to areas invaded in the past 5 years, but I found no reduction in seed bank plant diversity. I also plan to extract and sequence microbial DNA from soil samples to determine bacterial diversity.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Drew Monks, Research Associate, IES; Shane Lishawa, research associate, IES; John Kelly, professor, Biology Department
Supported By
University of Michigan Biological Station
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Invasive cattail residence time affects plant communities and belowground processes
Hybrid cattail (Typha x glauca) threatens native plant species in Great Lakes coastal wetlands and can impact belowground conditions and processes. I hypothesize that soil seed bank and microbial diversity decrease along a gradient of time-since-invasion by Typha. I collected soil samples a Typha-invaded wetland. The extant plant community was significantly different in areas invaded for over 20 years compared to areas invaded in the past 5 years, but I found no reduction in seed bank plant diversity. I also plan to extract and sequence microbial DNA from soil samples to determine bacterial diversity.