I. General Information

1. Course Title:
Ecological Classification of Native Plant Communities

2. Course Prefix & Number:
NATR 2321

3. Course Credits and Contact Hours:

Credits: 2

Lecture Hours: 1

Lab Hours: 2

4. Course Description:

5. Placement Tests Required:

6. Prerequisite Courses:

9. Co-requisite Courses:

II. Transfer and Articulation

III. Course Purpose

Other - If this course is not required in a program or is not part of the MN Transfer Curriculum, it may be used for the purpose(s) listed below:

• Liberal Arts Elective
• Technical Elective

IV. Learning Outcomes

1. College-Wide Outcomes

2. Course Specific Outcomes - Students will be able to achieve the following measurable goals upon completion of the course:

• Demonstrate understanding of native plant communities and the processes that affect them by creating written forest management plans which effectively direct the ongoing management of forested lands.
• Understand diverse values and viewpoints by creating and sharing forest management plans which incorporate private landowner objectives with native plant community processes.
• Understand the interrelation of human society and the natural environment by developing forest management plans which strike a balance between expectations of society and the natural processes of the environment.
• Utilize soil characteristics and presence or absence of selected herbaceous plants to identify and characterize native plant communities.
• Explain the typing of MN native plant communities (e.g., FD3445a).
• Demonstrate the proper use of the classification key for native vegetation communities.

V. Topical Outline

Listed below are major areas of content typically covered in this course.

1. Lecture Sessions

1. Introduce strategies for classifying and identifying native plant communities
• review soil characteristics and their association with plant communities
• review the taxonomy and identification of herbaceous plants
• provide a step-by-step introduction to the use of the keys in the identification of native plant communities
2. Examine the natural disturbances which affect different vegetation communities, how often they occur, and how they modify the communities
• review the information provided for disturbance types and return intervals for each native plant community
• review the successional changes in native plant communities as they recover from natural disturbances
• discuss the coordination of natural resource utilization and management with natural disturbance and successional change in the plant communities
3. Discuss and demonstrate the incorporation of native plant community natural history information into the development of forest management plans
• examine and critique existing forest management plans
• discuss possible improvements and more effective management through the incorporation of native plant community information
• discuss the challenge of integrating societal expectations (landowner objectives) with natural processes, such as disturbance and succession
4. Presentation and peer critique of forest management plans developed by students
• discuss native plant communities identified and natural disturbances, return intervals and successional pathways associated with these communities
• discuss landowners expectations and objectives for their property
• discuss the blending of objectives and natural processes and the prescriptive guidelines incorporated in the forest management plan

2. Laboratory/Studio Sessions

Introduction and application of the text to identify native plant communities and to understand the natural processes which affect them.  This will be replicated weekly in different biomes and environments across Minnesota including…

• mixed coniferous/deciduous forests
• deciduous forests
• coniferous forests
• forested wetland
• riparian forests
• forest/prairie ecotones
• agriculture/forest ecotones
• prairies