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This study compared trees in 6- to 28-year-old burned and unburned sites in the third drought year in mixed conifer forests at low elevation in Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite national parks in California, USA. Common conifer species found in the burned plots had significantly reduced probability of mortality compared to unburned plots during the drought. Stand density was significantly lower in burned versus unburned sites, supporting the idea that reduced competition may be responsible for the differential drought mortality response.
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In this article, researchers report a dramatic population number expansion of Salsola ryanii in the decade since it was originally documented. Salsola ryanii has every indication of being just as invasive as its highly invasive parents.
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In this Live Science article, Francis Kilkenny, lead of Great Basin Native Plant Project (GBNPP), shares information about the GBNPP and how it continues to support more successful rangeland restoration.
Lessons learned, so far include:
- Climate is more important than geography when predicting how well seeds will grow and establish themselves. Seeds don’t care where their parents lived if the temperature suits them and if they get the right amount of sunshine and precipitation.
- Timing of seed planting makes a big difference. Year to year, even week to week, variation in weather patterns can affect the restoration success of a burned site.
- Method of planting matters. To achieve the best results, scientists recommend tamping seeds into the ground to ensure they have good contact with the soil, or in some cases, planting a species in the form of “plugs.”
- Long-term monitoring after planting is critical to determine the effectiveness of different seed mixes and restoration techniques.
- Keeping livestock off seeded rangeland for at least three years improves a restoration effort’s likelihood of success.
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This study suggests that introduced species have disproportionately expanded their ranges upward in elevation over the past century when compared with native species. While these shifts in introduced species may not be exclusively driven by climate, they highlight the importance of considering the interacting factors of climate-driven range shifts and invasion to understand how floras are responding in the face of anthropogenic change.
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The purpose of this paper is to recommend a framework and methodology for incorporating hydrologic data and ecohydrologic relationships in Ecological Site Descriptions (ESDs) and thereby enhance the utility of ESDs for assessing rangelands and guiding resilience-based management strategies. The proposed framework increases the utility of ESDs to assess rangelands, target conservation and restoration practices, and predict ecosystem responses to management. The proposed enhancement of ESDs will improve communication between private land owners and resource managers and researchers across multiple disciplines in the field of rangeland management.
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This study evaluated the effects of fire on biological soil crusts of early-seral juniper. Compared with unburned plots, the biomass of cyanobacteria was diminished under juniper and sagebrush; it was reduced in the interspaces in both burned and unburned plots, presumably in response to generally harsher conditions in the postburn environment. Nitrogen fixation rates declined over time in juniper plots and interspaces but not in sagebrush plots. Although fire negatively affected some biological soil crust organisms in some parts of the early-seral juniper woodland, the overall impact on the crusts was minimal. If the intent of burning is to reduce juniper, burning of early-seral juniper woodland is appropriate, as most affected trees were killed. Burning early-seral juniper may be preferred for controlling juniper encroachment on rangeland.
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This study tested the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH) in observations of 75 sites along overlapping water and heat stress and disturbance gradients. As stress-disturbance levels increase, sagebrush-herbaceous plant facilitation levels increase, the landscape will become increasingly aggregated as a product of necessary facilitation between sagebrush and herbaceous plants. This aggregation decreases the individual resilience of the native herbaceous plants, increases the competition from invasive plants, and decreases the overall stability and resilience of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem.
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This study used survey data from three 2010 wildland fires to understand how ecological knowledge and education level affected fire management perception and understanding. Results indicated that increased accuracy in identifying ecological conditions was associated with higher proficiencies in the identification of fire management strategies used for wildfires. Education levels were not significantly related to public perception of fire management but were related to significant differences in accurately identifying ecological conditions. Results suggest that education may play a mediating role in understanding complex wildfire issues but is not associated with a better understanding of fire management.
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This study found that early seral natives generally outperformed late seral natives when growing with exotics and had earlier emergence timing, although results differed among functional groups and soil types. Survival probabilities, however, did not differ between the early and late seral mixes when growing without exotics. Within each seed mix, native grasses exhibited the highest emergence probabilities of the functional groups. Natives did not suppress exotics in early life stages. Performance of B. tectorum was higher on sandy loam, while T. caput-medusae was highly successful in both soil types. Performance of native functional groups differed by soil type when growing with exotics but did not differ when growing without exotics. Survival of native grasses, in particular, was generally higher on sandy loam when growing with exotics.
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This study monitored the habitat-use patterns of 71 radio-marked sage-grouse inhabiting an area affected by wildfire in the Virginia Mountains of northwestern Nevada during 2009–2011 to determine the effect of micro-habitat attributes on reproductive success. Sage-grouse selected micro-sites with greater shrub canopy cover and less cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) cover than random sites. Total shrub canopy, including sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and other shrub species, at small spatial scales (0.8 ha and 3.1 ha) was the single contributing selection factor to higher nest survival. These results indicate that reducing the risk of wildfire to maintain important sagebrush habitats could be emphasized in sage-grouse conservation strategies in Nevada. Managers may seek to mitigate the influx of annual grass invasion by preserving large intact sagebrush-dominated stands with a mixture of other shrub species. For this area of Nevada, the results suggest that ≥40% total shrub canopy cover in sage-grouse nesting areas could yield improved reproductive success.