Research and Publications
Keys to greater sage-grouse management are maintenance of expansive stands of sagebrush, especially varieties of big sagebrush with abundant forbs in the understory, particularly during spring; undisturbed and somewhat open sites for leks; and healthy perennial grass and forb stands intermixed with sagebrush for brood rearing. Within suitable habitats, areas should have 15–25% canopy cover of sagebrush 30–80 cm tall for nesting and 10–25% canopy cover 40–80 cm tall for brood rearing. In winter habitats, shrubs should be exposed 25–35 cm above snow and have 10–30% canopy cover exposed above snow. In nesting and brood-rearing habitats, the understory should have at least 15 percent cover of grasses and at least 10 percent cover of forbs greater than or equal to 18 cm tall. Greater sage-grouse have been reported to use habitats with 5–110 cm average vegetation height, 5–160 cm visual obstruction reading, 3–51% grass cover, 3–20% forb cover, 3–69 percent shrub cover, 7–63% sagebrush cover, 14–51% bare ground, and 0–18% litter cover. Unless otherwise noted, this account refers to habitat requirements and environmental factors affecting greater sage-grouse but not Gunnison sage-grouse. Habitats used by Gunnison sage-grouse are generally similar to habitats used by Greater Sage-Grouse, but some differences have been reported. The greater sage-grouse is a game bird and is hunted throughout most of its current range. This account does not address harvest or its effects on populations; rather, this account focuses on the effects of habitat management.
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Abstracts of Recent Papers on Range Management in the West. Prepared by Charlie Clements, Rangeland Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Reno, NV
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This example features development of a post-fire assessment field guide to aid treatment and management planning in burned areas.
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This example features a training program that has extended beyond one student and classroom to involve a team of learners and multiple classrooms.
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With concern over the health of aspen in the Intermountain West, public and private land managers need better guidance for evaluating aspen condition and selecting and implementing actions that will be effective in restoring aspen health. The Utah Forest Restoration Group collaboratively synthesized a step-by-step approach for aspen restoration that was applicable to western U.S. forests. In a successful case study in shared stewardship, these restoration guidelines were applied to a challenging real-world setting.
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This article analyses homeowners’ decisions to undertake fire-safe investments and create defensible space on their property using a unique dataset from 35 wildland–urban interface communities in Nevada. The dataset combines homeowner information from a mail survey with their observed fire-safe investments obtained through parcel-level hazard assessments. We find that homeowners’ self-reported mitigation expenditures are driven by their subjective beliefs about their wildfire risk, whereas observed defensible space status is driven by their costs of investment. We develop a theoretical model of a homeowner’s fire-safe investment decision that accounts for our empirical results.
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Managers can use the First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM) when planning prescribed burns to achieve mortality-related objectives and for creating post-fire salvage guidelines to predict which trees will die soon after fire. Of the preceding observations, 13,460 involved trees that burned twice. Researchers evaluated the post-fire tree mortality models in FOFEM for 45 species. Approximately 75% of models tested in the FOFEM had either excellent or good predictive ability. Models performed best for thick-barked conifer species. Models tend to overpredict mortality for conifers with moderate bark thickness and underpredict mortality in primarily angiosperms or thin-barked conifers. Managers who rely on these models can use the results to (1) be aware of the uncertainty and biases in model predictions and (2) choose a threshold for assigning dead and live trees that optimizes certainty in either identifying or predicting live or dead individuals.
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With remotely-sensed (Landsat) estimates of vegetation cover collected every 2–5 years from southwestern Wyoming, USA, over nearly three decades (1985–2015), we modeled changes in sagebrush cover on 375 former oil and gas well pads in response to weather and site-level conditions. We then used modeled relationships to predict recovery time across the landscape as an indicator of resilience for vegetation after well pad disturbances, where faster recovery indicates a greater capacity to recover when similarly disturbed. We found the rate of change in sagebrush cover generally increased with moisture and temperature, particularly at higher elevations. Rate of change in sagebrush cover also increased and decreased with greater percent sand and larger well pads, respectively. We predicted 21% of the landscape would recover to pre-disturbance conditions within 60 years, whereas other areas may require >100 years for recovery. These predictions and maps could inform future restoration efforts as they reflect resilience. This approach also is applicable to other disturbance types (e.g., fires and vegetation removal treatments) across landscapes, which can further improve conservation efforts by characterizing past conditions and monitoring trends in subsequent years.
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Two weed-suppressive bacteria strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens, known as ACK55 and D7, have been shown to reduce these exotic grass populations in eastern Washington, yet little is known about the efficacy of these or other weed-suppressive bacteria in other areas. Researchers tested the effects of ACK55 and D7 on Bromus tectorum both in the laboratory and at field sites in Montana and Wyoming. The bacteria strains reduced Bromus tectorum germination and root and shoot lengths in Petri-plates, but had no effect on plants during growth chamber plant-soil bioassays or field experiments. Bromus arvensis, a species similar to Bromus tectorum, was also unaffected by the weed-suppressive bacteria. Findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that the ACK55 and D7 are not reliable tools for controlling Bromus tectorum in the Northern Great Plains, Central Rocky Mountains, and elsewhere.
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We used long‐term data from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Range Trend Project to assess short‐term (1–4 yr post‐treatment) and long‐term (6–10 yr post‐treatment) effects of fire on vegetation cover at 16 sites relative to sage‐grouse habitat vegetation guidelines. Sagebrush cover remained low post‐fire at sites considered historically unsuitable for sage‐grouse (<10% initial sagebrush cover). In contrast, at sites that had higher (>10%) pre‐fire sagebrush cover, sagebrush cover decreased to <10% in the short‐term post‐fire, but by 6–10 yr after fire, most of these sites exhibited a recovering trajectory and two sites had recovered to >10% cover. Post‐fire sagebrush cover was positively related to elevation. Across all sites, perennial grasses and forbs increased in cover to approximately meet the habitat vegetation guidelines for sage‐grouse. Cheatgrass cover did not change in response to fire, and increased perennial grass cover appears to have played an important role in suppressing cheatgrass. Our results indicate that, while fire poses a potential risk for sage‐grouse habitat loss and degradation, burned sites do not necessarily need to be considered permanently altered, especially if they are located at higher elevation, have high sagebrush cover pre‐fire, and are reseeded with perennial grasses and forbs post‐fire. However, our results confirm that fire at more degraded sites, for example, those with <10% sagebrush cover, can result in cheatgrass‐dominated landscapes and sagebrush loss at these sites should be avoided.