First steps in monitoring the influence of trails on non-native and native plant distribution and composition and evaluating the success of trail restoration efforts in the Andes.

GUERRIDO, CLAUDIA MARCELA; PISSOLITO, CLARA; BARROS, AGUSTINA; FERNÁNDEZ, EMILIA

Obergurgl, Tyrol

Workshop; Long term research in mountain areas; 2017

University Centre Obergurgl, Tyrol, Austria

In the Patagonian Andes, there have been a steep rise in the number of hikers in the last couple of decades. In some cases, this has led to undesirable impacts such as trails erosion, habitat fragmentation due to the proliferation of informal trails and the advance of plant invasions. Here we present the first steps in the effort to monitor and remediate some of these impacts. The objective is to assess the influence of trail and habitat type on the cover and distribution of non-native plants. We surveyed the vegetation along 5 trekking trails in Los Glaciares National Park, Patagonia. We placed 5 m2 plots in 40 sites at fixed distance: 0, 10 and 30 meters from the trail, in each trail. We visually estimated cover of plant per species to 1% accuracy. We measured trail width and recorded habitat type (open forest, close forest, steppe, grassland). In the same National Park, we evaluated the suitability of restoration techniques formerly implemented. Five years after restoration was completed, we documented the progress by photographing the entire area with images of 50 cm2. We found that all patch transplants survived and abundant natural establishment occurred. With the objective of evaluating the suitability of restoration techniques implemented in Los Glaciares Park, we selected a former trekking trail which was restored using several techniques to ameliorate soil conditions and transplanting and seedling of native species. We documented progress 5 years after work was completed by conducting a photographic survey covering the entire restored area with images of 50 cm2 each. We found that all patch transplants survived, and abundant natural establishment occurred for some.Finally, with the aim to better understand plant invasions in recreational trails in mountain areas and make the results comparable across different regions, we propose an addition to the already stated MIREN protocol (MIREN: the Mountain Invasion Research Network, www.miren.ethz.ch), by implementing a modified protocol in trails used for hiking, horse riding and mountain biking.