Research and Publications
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On the Ground Emerging applications of ecosystem resilience and resistance concepts in sagebrush ecosystems allow managers to better predict and mitigate impacts of wildfire and invasive annual grasses. Widely available soil survey information can be harnessed to spatially depict and evaluate relative resilience and resistance from regional to site scales. New products and tools illustrate how managers can use soils data to inform rapid risk assessments, determine appropriate management strategies, and prioritize resources to maintain and restore functioning sagebrush ecosystems.
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This study developed range-wide population and habitat models for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) that account for regional variation in habitat selection and relative densities of birds for use in conservation planning and risk assessments. The models demonstrate distinct clustering of relative abundance of sage-grouse populations across all management zones. On average approximately half of the breeding population is predicted to be within 10% of the occupied range. We also found 80% of sage-grouse populations were contained in 25 – 34% of the occupied range within each management zone. Range-wide population and habitat models account for regional variation in habitat selection and the relative densities of birds, thus they can serve as a consistent and common currency to assess how sage-grouse habitat and populations overlap with conservation actions or threats over the entire sage-grouse range.
Want to beef-up your library? You can request the following resources in hard copy from Génie (listed in order of most recent publication date). You can also add them to your electronic library, just follow the links for downloads.
Fire patterns in piñon and juniper land cover types in the Semiarid Western United States from 1984 through 2013, 2018. RMRS-GTR-372
Restoration handbook for sagebrush steppe ecosystems with emphasis on greater sage-grouse habitat—Part 3. Site level restoration decisions, 2018. USGS Circular 1426
Science framework for conservation and restoration of the sagebrush biome: Linking the Department of the Interior’s Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy to long-term strategic conservation actions, 2017. RMRS-GTR-360
Pocket Guide to Sagebrush Birds, reprint, 2017. A partnership between Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory and PRBO Conservation Science
Pocket Guide to Sagebrush, reprint, 2017. Made possible by USU, NRCS, USFS, BLM, PRBO Conservation Science, NDOW, GBFSE
Ecohydrologic impacts of rangeland fire on runoff and erosion: A literature synthesis, 2016. RMRS-GTR-351
Using resilience and resistance concepts to manage threats to sagebrush ecosystems, Gunnison sage-grouse, and Greater sage-grouse in their eastern range: A strategic multi-scale approach, 2016. RMRS-GTR-356
A field guide for rapid assessment of post-wildfire recovery potential in sagebrush and pinon-juniper ecosystems in the Great Basin: Evaluating resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasive annual grasses and predicting vegetation response, 2015. RMRS-GTR-338
A review of fire effects on vegetation and soils in the Great Basin Region: Response and site characteristics, 2013. RMRS-GTR-308
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The Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) is used to provide the meteorological data for calculating the indices. Our results indicate that HDW can identify days on which synoptic-and meso-alpha-scale weather processes can contribute to especially dangerous fire behavior. HDW is shown to perform better than the HI for each of the four historical fires. Additionally, since HDW is based on the meteorological variables that govern the potential for the atmosphere to affect a fire, it is possible to speculate on why HDW would be more or less effective based on the conditions that prevail in a given fire case. The HI, in contrast, does not have a physical basis, which makes speculation on why it works or does not work difficult because the mechanisms are not clear.
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In this study, we conducted a field and data synthesis of nine years of annual plant communities occurring below perennial plants the National Park Service (NPS) had outplanted in 2008. At 30 sites disturbed by road construction and that were revegetated by NPS, we measured annual and perennial plants in 2009 (one year after nursery-grown perennials were outplanted at the sites), 2010, 2011, and 2017 (nine years after restoration). We also made these same measurements below vertical mulch structures.
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In this study, researchers measured vegetation structure and fuel moisture (pre-burn), weather conditions, belowground heat dosages, and peak temperatures (during the burn), and burn severities and unburned refugia (post-burn) for paired morning and afternoon prescribed burns at each of ten prairie sites throughout the south Puget Sound in 2014.
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This study predicts that restricting grazing of public lands by 50% would result in the loss of an additional 171,400 ha of sage‐grouse habitat on private lands by 2050, on top of the 842,000 ha predicted to be lost under business as usual. Most of this conversion would affect sage‐grouse mesic habitat, 75% of which occurs on private land and is vital to the species during brood rearing. Under such policy changes, we estimate that an additional 105,700 ha (3.24%) of sage‐grouse mesic habitat held on private land in the study region would be directly lost by 2050, and the cumulative area affected by fragmentation would be much higher.
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In this issue:
- Wildfire and SageSTEP research: An inevitable collision
- Treatment longevity and changes in surface fuel loads after pinyon-juniper mastication
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In this study, we use freely available, satellite remote sensing to explore changes in vegetation productivity(normalized difference vegetation index) of three distinct, low-tech, riparian and wet meadow restoration projects. Case studies are presented that range in geographic location (Colorado, Oregon, and Nevada), restoration practice (Zeedyk structures,beaver dam analogs, and grazing management), and time since implementation. Restoration practices resulted in increased vegetation productivity of up to 25% and increased annual persistence of productive vegetation. Improvements in productivity with time since restoration suggest that elevated resilience may further enhance wildlife habitat and increase forage production.Long-term, documented outcomes of conservation are rare; we hope our findings empower practitioners to further monitor and explore the use of low-tech methods for restoration of ecohydrologic processes at meaningful spatial scales.
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This study presents a method and case study to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration of riparian vegetation using a web-based cloud-computing and visualization tool (ClimateEngine.org) to access and process remote sensing and climate data. In each study area, the post-restoration NDVI-precipitation relationship was statistically distinct from the pre-restoration relationship, suggesting a change in the fundamental relationship between precipitation and NDVI resulting from stream restoration. We infer that the in-stream structures, which raised the water table in the adjacent riparian areas, provided additional water to the streamside vegetation that was not available before restoration and reduced the dependence of riparian vegetation on precipitation. This approach provides a cost-effective, quantitative method for assessing the effects of stream restoration projects on riparian vegetation.