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Vegetation restoration following dieback of Phragmites australis in the Mississippi River Delta, USA

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Abstract

The Mississippi River Delta (MRD) is one of the largest wetlands in the world and is experiencing widespread dieback of its most prevalent plant species, Phragmites australis. The potential for revegetation of dieback sites was assessed by planting three genetically distinct lineages of P. australis at seven sites in the MRD that varied in water depth. These lineages include Delta, the most prevalent in the MRD, EU, a highly invasive lineage, and Gulf, a common lineage of the Gulf Coast and southern United States. Three additional wetland species were planted at a subset of these sites. Plantings were monitored for 32 months during which time, we surveyed plantings for survival, growth and infestation by a scale insect that has been implicated in P. australis dieback. Survivorship differed considerably among plant types and by 6 months, Delta, Gulf and California bulrush (Schoenoplectus californicus) had twice the survivorship of the other plant types. By the end of the study, Delta, Gulf and bulrush were the only plant types alive, with Delta persisting in more than twice as many sites and having > 6 times more area of coverage as Gulf and bulrush. For all P. australis lineages, water depth was negatively related to survivorship. Finally, although scale insects achieved twice the abundance on Delta than the other lineages, we found no evidence that scales were inhibiting the growth and survival of P. australis. Despite potential negative legacy effects of dieback, Delta can be used revegetate shallow-water sites within a year following dieback.

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Data and drone images are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Todd Baker, Vaughan McDonald and Trebor Victoriano from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for technical and logistical support. Cindy Steyer from the U.S.D.A National Resources Conservation Service was also instrumental in incorporating this research into the Coastwide Vegetation Planning Project. We also thank the following people for their assistance with field work and scale counts: Leslie Aviles, Matthew Berry, Joey Breaux, Wendy Gibson, Nate Harms, Ian Knight, Herie Lee, Giovana Matos, Tshililo Mphephu.

Funding

This project was funded by the LSU AgCenter, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, U.S.D.A. APHIS (award number LAB94095 to R.D, J.A.N. and J.T.C.) and the U.S.D.A (LA-39 CWVP Year 7A; Coastwide Vegetative Planting Project; https://lacoast.gov/new/Projects/Info.aspx?num=LA-39).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Herie Lee, Joseph Johnston & James T. Cronin

  2. Department of Entomology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Rodrigo Diaz

  3. U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Aquatic Ecology and Invasive Species Branch, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS, 39180, USA

    Ian A. Knight

  4. School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    John A. Nyman

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, 202 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    James T. Cronin

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Contributions

JT Cronin, JA Nyman and R Diaz conceived of and designed this study. JT Cronin conducted the statistical analyses and H Lee and J Johnston conducted the drone-image analysis and developed the GIS for this study. IA Knight was instrumental in the setup of the experiment. Finally, JT Cronin and H Lee wrote the manuscript and all coauthors participated in the editing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to James T. Cronin.

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Lee, H., Diaz, R., Johnston, J. et al. Vegetation restoration following dieback of Phragmites australis in the Mississippi River Delta, USA. Wetlands 43, 98 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-023-01746-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-023-01746-8

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