Texas Wildlife - Quality Mule Deer Understanding Antler Progression - December 2020

Season of burning can have a profound impact on vegetation response. The plot on the right was burned in August 2009 following an application of glyphosate. Burning in late-summer (followed by a wet fall) resulted in a canopy of broomweed a year later. The plot on the left was not burned.

ACHIEVING SUCCESS WITH PLANT SUCCESSION Article and photos by DALE ROLLINS, PH.D.

T

he habitat manager’s primary tool is the process of plant succession—the orderly, predictable process of change in plant communities over time.

A corollary to this is “Rollins’ Rules of Plant Succession:” (a) know your plants and (b) know how to manipulate them. Know which plant species or plant communities are important to your desired species of wildlife, which in in my case is quail and then know how to use “Leopold’s tools” of axe, plow, cow and fire to foster that plant suite.

The ability to identify the top 25 plants on your property is a prerequisite—so do your homework! Get yourself a good region-specific field guide or explore some of the apps on your smartphone such as iNaturalist.

Depending on the tool used and the timing of its application, succession can either be advanced or set back. For example, a fire conducted in early April in North Texas tends to favor the taller grasses like little bluestem and Indiangrass, while a fire conducted in August might favor more forbs such as broomweed and western ragweed.

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DECEMBER 2020

A burn followed by grazing will favor forbs regardless of timing as the cattle will preferentially graze the grasses and give the forb community a relative advantage. One should strive to appreciate these interrelations in plant community dynamics.

Two types of succession are recognized: primary and secondary. The former is when a lichen begins growing on a rock, literally starting at ground zero. As habitat managers, we’re more interested in the latter.

To envision the process of secondary succession, let’s start with a stand of native grasses, e.g., in Clay County near Henrietta. If we plow up the native grasses (no, I’m not recommending this, but it’s been done extensively over the past 140 years…only used as an example here), and then walk away for a year, what plant communities might we expect to find?

The plowed field would initially spring up in “early successional species” like common sunflower, pigweed, kochia, broomweed and some weedy grasses like Colorado grass. These species exemplify the idea: “Nature abhors a vacuum,” or stated more colloquially, “Mother Nature is not a nudist.”