Invasive Species
Register for Level 2 Field Workshop in Idaho Falls, ID
This two-day workshops are designed to take an in depth look at how you can apply a set of principles and tools to strategically manage IAGs in both Eastern Idaho and Northern Great Basin. Our target audience includes both land managers and producers. Whether you are from the area or from the greater western US, these workshops are designed to help participants gain knowledge about how to best tackle IAGs through conversations about various management practices depending on invasion severity and recovery potential. Management goals can vary depending on how success is defined.
Additionally, we will visit a spectrum of sites from intact core areas to other rangelands areas. At these various sites, we will talk about potential management tactics and explore how different government agencies are tackling the issue based on various circumstances. Through this field workshop, our goal is to have participants become more confident with the different planning and management tools and help them to determine best management tactics to fit their situations.
Register for Level 2 Field Workshop in Elko, NV
This two-day workshops are designed to take an in depth look at how you can apply a set of principles and tools to strategically manage IAGs in both Eastern Idaho and Northern Great Basin. Our target audience includes both land managers and producers. Whether you are from the area or from the greater western US, these workshops are designed to help participants gain knowledge about how to best tackle IAGs through conversations about various management practices depending on invasion severity and recovery potential. Management goals can vary depending on how success is defined.
Additionally, we will visit a spectrum of sites from intact core areas to other rangelands areas. At these various sites, we will talk about potential management tactics and explore how different government agencies are tackling the issue based on various circumstances. Through this field workshop, our goal is to have participants become more confident with the different planning and management tools and help them to determine best management tactics to fit their situations.
Invasive annual grasses (IAG) – including cheatgrass, medusahead, ventanata, and others – continue to be a primary cause of rangeland degradation in the western US. In this workshop, we build upon concepts presented in previous events (see https://www.invasivegrasses.com/virtual-workshop) and focus specifically on turning strategies into action for managing IAG. Not only will we learn about the most current science around managing IAG, we will also hear success stories from ongoing projects and partnerships around the West.
You asked for it, you get it! A major component of this year’s virtual workshop will focus on answering questions submitted by you, the participants. We have compiled a list of questions submitted by previous workshop participants and will combine them with questions you can submit when you register to provide specific responses to those questions. Together, we will explore uniting landscape-scale strategic conservation concepts with targeted, on-the-ground management techniques specifically designed to meet vegetation management goals.
January 30 @ 10:00 am – March 6 @ 11:30 am PST
The US Geological Survey Land Management Research Program and the Great Basin Fire Science Exchange teamed up to bring you updates in sagebrush, fire, and wildlife related research. Dates, Topics, and Presentations: 1/30 – Sage-grouse, carbon topics Webinar recording Summary webpage Program with speakers, talks, and resources Greater sage-grouse hierarchical population monitoring framework: Range-wide application of an early warning systems for populations at-risk – Coates et al. Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation actions directed for greater sage-grouse using hierarchical models and the Conservation Efforts Database – Coates et al. Greater sage-grouse range-wide seasonal habitat maps: Identifying regional thresholds and relationships between trends and seasonal habitat use – Wann et al. Characterizing the environmental drivers of range-wide gene flow for greater sage-grouse – Zimmerman et al. Characterizing greater sage-grouse climate driven maladaptation – Zimmerman et al. Quantifying carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions in sagebrush rangelands to inform management for carbon resilience – Bagcilar and Case 2/6 – Invasive species, restoration effectiveness, and monitoring – Webinar recording Summary Webpage Program with speakers, talks, and resources Develop annual herbaceous percent cover maps in near-real time – Boyte et al. Proliferation of fine fuels: Assessing under future climatic conditions – Heinrichs et al. Optimizing sagebrush restoration and management actions to increase connectivity within the Sagebrush Conservation Design – Tarbox et al. Assessing cheatgrass treatment efficacy across the sagebrush biome – Tarbox et al. Simulating trends in land health components under treatment scenarios and Sagebrush Conservation Design – Monroe et al. Biome-wide vegetation change monitoring and warning system – Aldridge Vectors of annual grass invasion – Heinrichs et al. Predicting reburn risk to restoration investments – Applestein and Germino 2/20 – Monitoring, pinyon-juniper, and fuels management – Webinar recording Summary webpage Program with speakers, talks, and resources Planning for conservation delivery success: Linking biome-wide Sagebrush Conservation Design to local treatment planning by leveraging landscape restoration outcomes- Pilliod et al. Technical transfer tools for the Nevada and Oregon rangeland monitoring project (NORMP) – Pilliod et al. Rapid and Other Assessment and Monitoring Methods (ROAM) project – Pilliod et al. Pinyon-juniper treatments for minimizing climate and fire vulnerability – Bradford Synthesis and forecasts of pinyon-juniper woodland die-off – Wion Synthesizing scientific information on treatment and natural disturbance effects on pinyon-juniper woodlands and associated wildlife habitat – Shinneman and Coates Treatment and post-fire assessment tools for management of the sagebrush ecosystem – Duniway 2/27 – Fire, fuels management, invasive species – Webinar recording Summary webpage Program with speakers, talks, and resources Effectiveness of layering treatments in the “multiple-intervention” response to wildfire in sagebrush steppe – Germino A collaborative and iterative framework for delivering applied fuel break science: With a focus on sagebrush ecosystems and the Great Basin – Shinneman et al. UAS survey of sagebrush fuel breaks – Shinneman and Kreitler Invasive annual grass – Economic assessment – Meldrum et al. Longevity of herbicides targeting exotic annual grasses in sagebrush-steppe soils – Germino and Lazarus Synthesis of indaziflam outcomes for protecting sagebrush ecosystems – Roche et al. Can ruderal components of biocrust be maintained under increasing threats of drought, grazing, and wild horses? Condon and Coates 3/6 – Climate, vegetation trends, and more Webinar recording Summary webpage Program with speakers, talks, and resources RCMAP veg trends and updates – Rigge Integrating climate, sagebrush habitat, and R&R – Bradford et al. Influence of future climate scenarios on habitat and population dynamics of greater sage-grouse – O’Neil et al. Understanding and forecasting environmental controls over plant establishment in sagebrush ecosystems to enhance restoration success – Bradford et al. Treatment and post-fire assessment tools for management of the sagebrush ecosystem – Duniway Science to support elk management efforts to reduce CWD risk – Janousek and Graves
Invasive annual grass project planning, grants, and implementation for land management practitioners
Webinar registration.
Invasive annual grasses represent one of the most critical threats to western sagebrush and grassland ecosystems. Tackling this problem at the right scale and in the right place is critical for lasting success. This webinar will share real world lessons learned from large scale restoration projects including:
· Importance of partnerships
· Developing shared goals
· Project site selection
· Acquiring funding
· Communicating success to funders and beyond
Follow this link for Session 1 Recording: (Increasing the Success of Invasive Annual Grass Restoration Projects Webinar Recording)
View article.
We created range-wide phenology forecasts for two problematic invasive annual grasses: cheatgrass, and red brome . We tested a suite of 18 mechanistic phenology models using observations from monitoring experiments, volunteer science, herbarium records, timelapse camera imagery, and downscaled gridded climate data to identify the models that best predicted the dates of flowering and senescence of the two invasive grass species. We found that the timing of flowering and senescence of cheatgrass and red brome were best predicted by photothermal time models that had been adjusted for topography using gridded continuous heat-insolation load index values. Phenology forecasts based on these models can help managers make decisions about when to schedule management actions such as grazing to reduce undesirable invasive grasses and promote forage production, quality, and biodiversity in grasslands; to predict the timing of greatest fire risk after annual grasses dry out; and to select remote sensing imagery to accurately map invasive grasses across topographic and latitudinal gradients. These phenology models also have the potential to be operationalized for within-season or within-year decision support.
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Distributions of both native and invasive species are expected to shift under future climate. Species distribution models (SDMs) are often used to explore future habitats, but sources of uncertainty including novel climate conditions may reduce the reliability of future projections. We explore the potential spread of the invasive annual grass ventenata (Ventenata dubia) in the western United States under both current and future climate scenarios using boosted regression tree models and 30 global climate models (GCMs). We quantify novel climate conditions, prediction variability arising from both the SDMs and GCMs, and the agreement among GCMs. Results demonstrate that currently suitable habitat is concentrated inside the invaded range of the northwest, but substantial habitat exists outside the invaded range in the Southern Rockies and southwestern US mountains. Future suitability projections vary greatly among GCMs, but GCMs commonly projected decreased suitability in the invaded range and increased suitability along higher elevations of interior mountainous areas.
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Ecological disturbance can affect carbon storage and stability and is a key consideration for managing lands to preserve or increase ecosystem carbon to ameliorate the global greenhouse gas problem. Dryland soils are massive carbon reservoirs that are increasingly impacted by species invasions and altered fire regimes, including the exotic-grass-fire cycle in the extensive sagebrush steppe of North America. Direct measurement of total carbon in 1174 samples from landscapes of this region that differed in invasion and wildfire history revealed that their impacts depleted soil carbon by 42-49%, primarily in deep horizons, which could amount to 17.1-20.0 Tg carbon lost across the ~400,000 ha affected annually. Disturbance effects on soil carbon stocks were not synergistic, suggesting that soil carbon was lowered to a floor-i.e. a resistant base-level-beneath which further loss was unlikely. Restoration and maintenance of resilient dryland shrublands/rangelands could stabilize soil carbon at magnitudes relevant to the global carbon cycle.
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We seeded perennial grass (Elymus elymoides) at multiple depths to determine susceptibility and resistance. Herbicides were applied at full and reduced rates to mimic the effect of litter in natural systems. We observed reductions in most non-native species in all treatments, but also extensive reductions of native annual forbs, although these were offset at lower application rates, and some species (e.g. Amsinckia tessellata and Microsteris gracilis) were less susceptible than others. Herbicides, particularly indaziflam, reduced E. elymoides emergence, but planting seeds at 2–3 cm depths improved emergence, particularly for imazapic, with 15–68% greater emergence than seeds planted at 1 cm. We suggest surveys for native annual forbs and resistant invaders before applying herbicides and field testing to determine whether reduced rates could provide weed control while maintaining annual forbs. We suggest planting E. elymoides at 2–3 cm when applying herbicides, an approach that may be effective for other species. Herbicide use can be an effective tool, but our results indicate that mitigation of nontarget effects will be needed to maintain native plant diversity.
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Overall, indaziflam + imazapic had greater initial control of cheatgrass, but by 2023, both treatments led to similar ∼17 percentage-point reductions in cheatgrass cover. Cheatgrass individuals that “escaped” the herbicide treatment grew exceptionally large and fecund. There were no reductions in cover in any native vegetation type, including biocrusts, and nontarget increases in cover were observed for 1) deep-rooted perennial grasses treated with indaziflam + imazapic in the 2011 burn subregion and 2) the shallow-rooted Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda) treated with either herbicide in the 2011 or 2011 + 2019 burn subregions. Consideration of burn legacies, pretreatment landscape condition, and evenness of treatment application may improve restoration outcomes and help prioritize management allocation, timing, and treatment expectations.