Eradication… What comes next?
Congratulations! At least one of your MUs has reached a Phragmites-free state.
It’
s time to take a moment to recognize all the hard work, diligence, and tenacity that it takes to reach a Phragmites-free management unit. Whether you followed PAMF guidance or other management techniques, the PAMF team congratulates you on the elimination of Phragmites from your site.
As you assess what to do next with your management unit, the PAMF team encourages you to continue to monitor and check for reestablishment of Phragmites in your management unit over the next few years if your capacity, funding, and situation allows. If desired, you can continue to use the PAMF monitoring protocol, but there are many monitoring options. Reestablishment of Phragmites at any site is a possibility. Do not let your efforts be rewritten!
Following eradication, you may want to consider some form of restoration. Restoration is an important step in reducing Phragmites‘ ability to reestablish and regain its dominance at the site as quickly as it arrived. As one strategy to help combat reestablishment, we have provided restoration resources below for your reference.
With continued monitoring at this site in PAMF, just remember to answer “Yes” to the “Has Phragmites been eradicated from your management unit?” question in your monitoring report on the PAMF Web Hub.
Resources
GLPC Website:
- Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative website restoration resources
- Research – Go to Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative table of recently published research and type “Restoration” into the search bar to pull up the latest relevant research
Webinars:
- A tale of two species: Restoring native wild rice through non-native Phragmites management in Green Bay coastal wetlands
- Seed-based wetland restoration following Phragmites australis removal: harnessing seed traits and systems modeling to promote native plant establishment
- Case studies and tools: Assessing the performance of stream and wetland restoration
Other resources:
- Ecological Revegetation Application (ERA) – plant database and ecoregion restoration tool
- A Manager’s Guide to Roadside Revegetation Using Native Plants
- Restoring the Marsh Phragmites Removal and Monitoring – MI Sea Grant St. Clair Case Study
Join PAMF
Anyone managing non-native Phragmites in the Great Lakes basin can participate in PAMF. Click the button below to get started!
Questions?
Please contact: Samantha Tank, Great Lakes Commission at pamf@glc.org