Long Term Recovery of Experimental Off-Road Vehicle Impacts and Abandoned Old Trails in the Big Cypress National Preserve

摘要

The study evaluated the off-road vehicles used in the Big Cypress National Preserve to impact the preserve's major habitat types. The authors subsequently measured one annual cycle of recovery in these experimentally created lanes. They also measured one annual cycle of recovery in old trails, many of which had not been originally created by off-road vehicles but had been heavily used by them for many years. The current study details recovery seven years after the experimental lanes had been created or the old trails abandoned. Parameters evaluated included visual, soil, and vegetation characteristics. After seven years recovery, few of the one pass and medium impact experimental lanes were still significantly different from adjacent controls. However, very few of the heavy impact lanes had recovered.