PLANTS ESTABLISHING IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENTS-- a manual for choosing native species for revegetation

Abstract

Species which have established naturally on a disturbed site in a given environment-- climate and disturbance level (defined below)-- are good candidates for revegetation plantings in that environment. On this basis we recommend native plants (grasses, forbs, and shrubs) for revegetation plantings, if they occur on at least half of the sites sampled in the environmental type and cover at least 1% of the ground there. We also list exotic plants establishing on once disturbed roadside sites; if these plants do not invade native vegetation they might, under some circumstances, be used for revegetation The environmental types considered include dry grasslands (BOGR/STCO and AGSP/BOGR), moist grasslands (FESC/FEID and FEID/AGCA) sagebrush (ARAR/FEID and ARTRVAS/FEID) , warm dry forests (PSME/ SYAL and PSME/PHMA), warm moist forests (POTR/CARU, THPL/OPHO, TSHE/CLUN, ABLA/CLUN), cool forests (ABLA/XETE, ABLA/ARCO, and ABLA/VACC), mountain meadows (FEID/AGCA, listed above) and alpine (DESC/CARX) . In each environment plant performance is contrasted across five disturbance types: continually disturbed types (roadshoulders and the adjacent ditch slope), once disturbed sites (roadcuts with organic matter removed and cleared right-of-way without organic matter removal), and undisturbed late seral sites.