Arctic scrub frozen drainageways and mounds complex
Scenario model
Current ecosystem state
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Management practices/drivers
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Transition T1
A peat mound or palsa raises up from the surrounding wet sedge meadow
More details -
No transition or restoration pathway between the selected states has been described
Target ecosystem state
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Description
There is one plant community within the reference state. Grazing is the main form of disturbance. The reference plant community supports vegetation that can be characterized as a wet sedge meadow (Viereck et al 1994).
All plant communities associated with this ecological site have limited data, so the state-and-transition model is provisional.
Submodel
Description
Peat mounds develop from the surrounding wet sedge meadows associated with the reference state. A peat mound is an elliptical dome-like permafrost mound containing alternating layers of ice lenses and peat or mineral soil, which are typically less than 10 feet in height. The edges of these raised features are strongly sloping. Peat mounds can raise significantly above the water table and soil drainage can improve. If these landforms raise high enough above the water table, soil temperature increases, and eventually ice-lens melt. As soils thaw and ice melts, these peat mounds eventually collapse (Seppälä 1986; Pielou 1995). After collapse, the soils are thought to revert to thermokarst state conditions. Three plant communities occur within the peat mound state and the vegetation differs in large part due to the degree of ungulate use.
Submodel
Model keys
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The Ecosystem Dynamics Interpretive Tool is an information system framework developed by the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and New Mexico State University.