Fact Sheet / Brief

Secretarial Order 3336 – Rangeland fire prevention, management, and restoration

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This Order sets forth enhanced policies and strategies for preventing and
suppressing rangeland fire and for restoring sagebrush landscapes impacted by fire across the West. These actions are essential for conserving habitat for the greater sage-grouse as well as other
wildlife species and economic activity, such as ranching and recreation, associated with the sagebrush-steppe ecosystem in the Great Basin region.

Mapping potential ecosystem resilience and resistance across sage-grouse range using soil temperature and moisture regimes

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This fact sheet from the Sage Grouse Initiative discusses a new soils product that provides the ability to depict potential ecosystem resilience and resistance across the range of sage-grouse using soil temperature and moisture regimes.

Fire, small mammals, and plant rehabilitation

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This brief highlights a study that found rodents foraged differently in burned and unburned areas. They took seeds and ate seedlings from unburned areas. They were more likely to leave seeds and seedlings in the burned areas.

 

Bees in the desert: Plant reproduction after fire

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This fact sheet summarizes findings from a study comparing insect populations in burned and unburned areas. The study showed greater reproductive success for isolated plant survivors of generalist species, and less success for specialist species. The more specialized your reproductive strategy, the harder fire is on your sex life.

 

Presidential memorandum – Creating a federal strategy to promote the health of honey bees and other pollinators

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This presidential memorandum outlines federal efforts and steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels. The steps include the development of new public-private partnerships and increased citizen engagement.

Biological soil crusts and fire in Utah’s west desert

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This brief highlights a study following fire in Utah’s Rush Valley, where researchers found that fire killed biological soil crust pretty thoroughly, which wasn’t a surprise. However, following the fire cyanobacteria, the helpful and essential ingredient in biocrusts, did not return soon after fire, but Firmicutes, another tenacious and aggressive bacteria, did move in.

Small mammals and cheatgrass

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This research brief highlights a study investigating whether on not deer mice could help combat the invasive weeds infiltrating desert landscapes after fire.

Greater sage-grouse space-use models inform surface use designations

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This brief summarizes a study that provides empirical support for distances between 5 and 7.5 km from leks for surface use designation. It is important to note that sage-grouse space use does not fully inform the extent of no-activity areas. Some industrial activities, such as those generating acoustic pollution, can contribute to negative impacts which extend beyond the physical footprint of each installation.

Saving sage-grouse from the trees: a proactive solution to reducing a key threat to a candidate species

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This scientific paper suggests that sage-grouse incur population-level impacts at very low levels of encroachment, and leks were less likely to be active where smaller trees were dispersed.

A summary of this study and a video were made available by the Sage Grouse Initiative.

Wildland fire fact sheet for the public and media

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This brief summarizes fire ecology and management issues in California mixed-conifer forests for an audience without a background in fire, including the general public and media.

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