Studies of Elymus mollis directed toward its use in revegetation of maritime tundra

Technical Report · Sat Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:5945975

Williams, M P

Selection of suitable species, which will survive the severe environment of low light, cool temperatures, and high winds, poses serious problems to revegetation programs in the Aleutian Islands. Selection must be based on adaptability of plants to the extremes of the Aleutian climate and, as realized more recently, on lack of disruption of the natural ecosystem. This places the emphasis on use of native species in revegetation. Elymus mollis Trin., American dunegrass, a dominant of the Aleutian dune community, was studied to better understand its potential for use in reclamation work. As the species occupies both beach and inland sites, an emphasis was placed on documenting its wide latitude of habitat occurrence. Community composition, dispersal, growth response, ecotypic variation, and nutrient relations were studied at two beach sites and two inland sites on Adak Island in the central Aleutian Islands in the 1977 and 1978 growing seasons. Test plantings of rhizome sections of E. mollis in disturbed sand substrates were successful and illustrated the ease of use of the species in revegetation without availability of seed. From these studies, the species does appear to possess the characteristics of a good colonizer and should be valuable in revegetation. The greatest overall response of E. mollis occurred in unstable sand soils. 79 refs., 9 figs., 15 tabs.

• Research Organization: Tennessee Univ., Knoxville (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AS05-76EV04180
• OSTI ID: 5945975
• Report Number(s): DOE/EV/04180-T1; ON: DE86009321
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

510100* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
CLIMATES
CLONING
DATA
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GRASS
HABITAT
INFORMATION
ISLANDS
LAND RECLAMATION
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANTS
VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION