Dr. Karen Pope, US Forest Service

The pace and scale of meadow restoration is increasing in the mountains of California. And for good reason: intensive land uses have transformed many meadows from complex, biodiversity hotspots into simple, incised channels that store less water and have reduced habitat quality. Among the organisms that inhabit montane meadows, amphibians are especially threatened. The increasing importance of conserving amphibians and the increasing incentive for meadow restoration provides an opportunity to both improve restoration practices for native amphibians and to learn from them about important hydrologic characteristics that structure and maintain meadows. In this presentation, Dr. Pope will relate species biology with meadow hydrology to define core meadow characteristics that support the species and will demonstrate how to apply those characteristics to meadow restoration design.