Invasive Species
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This dataset contains a time series (2000-2013) of cheatgrass percent cover maps covering the western and central areas of the northern Great Basin. The time series of cheatgrass percent cover maps was developed for two primary reasons: To better understand cheatgrass percent cover dynamics in the northern Great Basin and to develop a dataset that can be used as proxy for annual actual cheatgrass production thereby serving as the dependent variable in the cheatgrass dieoff model.
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In this study, researchers examined nitrogen cycling rates in sagebrush and cheatgrass-invaded soils over a 100 mile range in the northern Great Basin, adding antibiotics to study the roles that soil fungi and bacteria play in nitrogen transformations. Results point to the important role fungi play in nitrogen dynamics in native sagebrush steppe and suggest that cheatgrass’s alteration of the microbial community may make nitrogen more available further benefiting the establishment and growth of this invasive grass.
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These abstracts summarize rangeland management topics in the West.
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This bulletin summarizes recent research on biological soil crusts, which are a complex of microscopic organisms growing on the soil surface in many arid and semi-arid ecosystems. These crusts perform the important role of stabilizing soil and reducing or eliminating water and wind erosion. One of the largest threats to biological soil crusts in the arid and semi-arid areas of the western United States is mechanical disturbance from vehicle traffic and grazing. The spread of the annual invasive cheatgrass has increased the fuel load in areas that previously would not carry a fire, posing a potentially widespread and new threat to this resource.
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This study adapted and applied four rangeland health indicators to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program for research locations on the Fishlake National Forest in central Utah. These data can be used by local forest managers to determine the health status of the local forest and to identify the proportion of sites that may be functioning at risk.
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This report discusses development of the Rangeland Vegetation Simulator (RVS) and new models for estimating understory conditions in forested landscapes. The RVS is calibrated on 112 unique sites and enables simulation of ecological dynamics, production and fuels in either a spatially explicit manner or as a processor of inventory data much like the FVS. Validation of the RVS, in this inaugural development, suggests significant promise for its use to describe vegetation and fuel data when the structure and composition are given, but its ability to describe succession is limited and in some cases unrealistic.
The premier outputs of the vegetation simulator are:
1) Standing biomass, carbon, and annual production of herbs and shrubs (including standing dead herbaceous material).
2) Vegetation structure, composition, and seral stage
3) Fuelbed properties (1, 10, 100, 1000 hr fuel) and fire behavior fuel models
4) Response of these attributes to herbivory and fire
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This technical manual provides regional accounts of historical and current uses of fire, and then discusses fire effects on wildlife and the challenges of using prescribed fire in each system.
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The Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy outlined the need for coordinated, science-based adaptive management to achieve long-term protection, conservation, and restoration of the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystem. A key component of this management approach is the identification of knowledge gaps that limit implementation of effective strategies to meet current management challenges. The tasks and actions identified in the Strategy address several broad topics related to management of the sagebrush ecosystem. This science plan is organized around these topics and specifically focuses on fire, invasive plant species and their effects on altering fire regimes, restoration, sagebrush and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), and climate and weather.
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This research suggests that widespread environmental change within sagebrush ecosystems, especially the fire-cheatgrass cycle (e.g., invasion of cheatgrass and increased fire frequency) and human land disturbances, are directly and indirectly influencing ground squirrels and badgers.
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The paper concludes that though wildfire and invasion by exotic annual grasses may negatively affect other species, harvester ants may indeed be one of the few winners among a myriad of losers linked to vegetation state changes within sagebrush ecosystems.