Oak Meadow Restoration

The Pacific Northwest is home to the beautiful and unique camas (Camassia spp.) meadow communities that were created through the stewardship and cultivation of Coast Salish communities. They are breathtaking in their species diversity and cultural importance. More than 95% of the historical range has been lost due to land conversion, and the remaining patches are threatened by the loss of traditional management practices, invasive species, over-browsing, and high pressures of recreational use. Western restoration science and practice in these systems is wide-spread, knowledgeable, yet still facing many challenges including its problematic disconnection from the Nations that are so deeply embedded in these landscapes. Our lab is excited to contribute by exploring landscape context of the remaining meadows, ecosystem function and trait-based restoration tools, and plant-soil interactions in restoration success. We recognize that the perspective we bring is fundamentally Western, from a predominantly colonial context. We continuously push to deepen our relationships with Coast Salish peoples, and hope that what we do can support the resurgence of these spaces.

Springtails

Life in soils is essential to the function of terrestrial ecosystems. The soil also hosts a huge amount of species (estimates of 25 - 50 % of Earth's biodiversity). Springtails are a group of insect-like animals living in the soil and plant litter that can be found at densities from tens to hundreds of thousands per meter squared of soil. They contribute to nutrient cycling and are an important food source for larger animals. 

Sarah Bird's PhD research is looking at how springtails (Order: Collembola) respond to the exclusion of deer from degraded oak meadows, in collaboration with Dr. Tara Martin at UBC, and how decomposition in oak meadows is connected to different components of the soil food web. 

Camas (qʷɫəɫ/KȽO,EL)

​Camas (qʷɫəɫ in lək̓ʷəŋiʔnəŋ́ and KȽO,EL in SENCOŦEN, Camassia spp.) are slow-growing bulb species that sit at the heart of one of the most important Indigenous food systems across Coast Salish territories. Playing important ecological and cultural roles, it is important to better understand how these species relate to their environment to support the persistence of thriving camas populations.

Our work has explored the life history traits of the two prevalent camas species in this region, common and great camas (Camassia quamash and C. leichtlinii), and how their growth and reproductive traits respond to different environmental conditions and on what temporal scales.

 Restoration species pool

One of the main ways to add native species to restored ecosystems is through seeding and/or planting, but often restoration projects are limited by the commercial availability of species. As part of Diana's PhD research, we are compiling the pool of species that are commercially available for oak meadow restoration in native nurseries and other seed providers  across British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. By comparing these commercially-available species with species found in remnant sites, we aim to investigate taxonomic and functional biases in this pool, helping to inform seed strategies and programs.

Native Grassland Restoration

From the vanishing prairies of Texas to the threatened meadows under oak canopies in British Columbia, grass-dominated ecosystems are complex, diverse, and fascinating. These systems are often heavily used. Be it for grazing, haying, trail riding, or agriculture, they represent the intersection of human dominated landscapes and wild biodiversity values. Our research focuses on improving degraded grassland regions through active restoration management and collaborative planning in multi-use landscapes.

Chatfield Farms Experimental Prairie Restoration

In partnership with Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms (located in Denver, Colorado, USA), we are implementing a multiple staged restoration experiment to examine the resilience of a degraded rangeland state and the management choices that can push it back towards a functional, diverse grassland community by increasing native species recruitment. We are testing diverse seeding strategies exploring planting method (through managed microsites) and seed mixes based on suites of plant functional traits and environmental niches. 

Collaborators on the project include the Suding Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder,  the Madsen lab at Brigham Young University, the Science and Research Team at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and the University of Denver. Together, we are assessing vegetation community trajectories through community assembly, coexistence, and species demography.

The project was launched with the support of the USDA NIFA fellowship program.

Grassland drought experiment

Diana's PhD research at the University of Victoria explores the functional drivers of grassland response to extreme drought events. ​ As part of her research, we are implementing a common garden experiment with BC native grasses at the University of Victoria Outdoor Research Compound to tease apart the relative importance of functional composition and functional diversity in driving resistance and recovery to extreme drought. The experimental grassland communities were first seeded in the Fall of 2022 and should receive the experimental drought treatment in the Spring of 2025.

Community-Engaged Work

Restoration, and honestly just being human, is deeply embedded in communities, values, and developing respectful relationships. We have a few projects that explore the connections between people and land, as well as people and each other.

LGBTQ+ Experiences in Field Education

As a part of Sam Ahler's PhD work at the University of Colorado, the lab supports projects exploring the experiences of LGBTQ+/Queer identifying students in field based education and work. The main questions guiding this work are: 1) Do LGBTQ+ students have unique experiences in field-based courses because of their queer identities? 2)What variation in experiences exists within the LGBTQ+ population of students? and 3) What does support look like for this marginalized group of students in order to increase their persistence in the discipline? This work is motivated by Sam's personal experiences in the field and their commitment to increasing inclusivity in the field—a defining experience for many field-based disciplines and professions. 

Campus as Living Lands

Hannah Gentes' Masters research explores the health dynamics of Indigenous-managed wetland social-ecological systems, with a focus on culturally important wetland plants and Indigenous stewards on campus. The research project is the re-introduction of Indigenous management practices to a degraded and unmanaged wetland site on campus, with the intention of creating space for Indigenous students, staff, and community members to interact with the land, find home, and have access to culturally important medicines and foods. This project is part of the larger Indigenous restoration project on campus called Campus as Living Lands (CALL) and is guided by a local Lekwungen land steward.

Photo of Swan Lake from islandnature.ca

Environmental Education

Julia’s PhD focuses on designing and evaluating integrated curricular programming for environmental education. Community-engaged approaches are key to this work. Our curricula incorporate braided, experiential, and service-based approaches to learning, covering a range of environmental science and ecology topics. We are investigating how conducting environmental caretaking impacts students’ attitudes of environmental responsibility and assessing impacts of these programs on multiple dimensions of student learning.​

Indigenous and Community Led Native Seed Supply in the Yukon & Canada

Working to building the capacity and potential for meaningful land restoration through Indigenous and community led native seed supply in the Yukon, and across Canada. 
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This research project aims to understand and support the the work being led by Indigenous communities and local groups in the Yukon and Canada working to collection, grow and supply native seeds and plants to restore the land.

We want to highlight the different pathways that have allowed these groups to be successful and identify where ongoing support is needed for their continued progress. By sharing what we and others have learned with our peers, we hope to collectively work towards supporting the health of the land, water, and our communities.

The Global Restore Project
(GRP)

Restoration actions span a wide variety of methods and strategies. As one of the largest restoration database efforts globally, the GRP finds the common threads between projects globally and helps us understand which methods work, where, why, and who is implementing them. This effort is pivotal to sharing knowledge and growing that knowledge together as a restoration community.

For more information, please see the GRP homepage, hosted by our amazing collaborators at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research.
We work on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples. The Songhees and Esquimalt, as well as the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples have deep, historical relationships with the land that continue to this day. Most of our group are uninvited settlers here. We are committed to deepening our understanding of how we can assist in the movement of reconciliation, dismantling the systems that continue to cause harm, and honoring the traditional stewards that have shaped this land.