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noted that this latter concept of diversity may frequently be extremely <br />important to achievement of many reclamation goals on mined lands, but <br />has all too often been ignored in reclamation planning and design. <br />As noted by DePuit (8) and others, considerable progress has been <br />made in Northern Great Plains revegetation technology in terms of ini- <br />tial plant establishment, absolute cover and productivity. However, <br />rapid attainment of desired vegetation diversity has proven far more <br />difficult. While some advances in techniques for enhanced intra -plant <br />community diversity have been made (e.g., 10, 5), major problems remain <br />to be solved in terms of life form structure, seasonality, and species <br />diversity (48). Even less progress has been made in applied practices <br />to promote inter -plant community (i.e., habitat) diversity on mined <br />lands. <br />Edaphic Influences <br />Under natural conditions, the nature, occurrence, and distribution <br />of plant communities is determined by variations in such factors as <br />soil characteristics, topography, and aspect as they interact with <br />climate to produce varied physical habitat features over an area. <br />Wollenhaupt and Richardson (52),for example, noted the importance of <br />effects of variations in topography on the nature and composition of <br />plant communities reestablished on mined lands. Effects of variations <br />in specific soil characteristics on development of plant communities on <br />mined lands have often been reported (e.g., 14, 15, 49). In short, <br />reasonably rapid achievement of post- mining vegetation diversity can <br />be expected to be a direct function of creation of necessary physio- <br />graphic and edaphic conditions during the recontouring and soil handling <br />phases of the reclamation process. <br />The importance of proper topsoiling procedures to adequate mined <br />land reclamation is now widely recognized. Considerable research has <br />been conducted on optimal topsoil replacement depths (33, 24, 2) and <br />management (47, 23). However, this research for the most part has <br />emphasized effects of varied topsoiling procedures on vegetation produc- <br />tivity. The potential influence of topsoiling practices on vegetation <br />diversity has received relatively limited attention. <br />Objectives of Paper <br />The purpose of the following analysis is to discuss topsoiling <br />strategies which have either proven or potential utility for enhance- <br />ment of vegetation diversity on mined lands. Both intra- and inter- <br />plant community diversity will be addressed. Due to the rather limited <br />amount of direct information on specific effects of varied topsoiling <br />procedures on diversity, much of the discussion will by necessity be <br />conjectural and should be recognized as such. Hopefully, however, this <br />discussion will stimulate further field research /application on certain <br />of the practices hypothesized to enable a more concrete evaluation of <br />their utility for promotion of diversity. <br />259 <br />