Restoration
Visit SageSTEP website.
SageSTEP is a long-term multidisciplinary experiment evaluating methods of sagebrush steppe restoration in the Great Basin.
You can find and access information on this project’s:
- Land management treatments
- Treatment effects on vegetation and fuels; soils and biogeochemistry; water runoff and erosion; wildlife and insects
- The economics and human perspectives of management treatments
- Association with climate change
- Research findings thus far and project future
View guide.
This guidebook focuses on the use of weather and climate information in the Ecologically-Based Invasive Plant Management Framework in planning and post-management treatment evaluation. It provides land managers with resources for finding weather and climate data, and tools for incorporating this data into adaptive management planning for rangeland restoration.
View synthesis.
This synthesis addresses seven major conservation practices and two crosscutting issues: prescribed grazing, prescribed burning, brush management, range planting, riparian herbaceous cover, upland wildlife habitat management, herbaceous weed control, landscape analysis, socioeconomics and ecosystem services.
View chapter.
This synthesis chapter presents an assessment of the conservation effects of rangeland planting practices – both the assessment of the direct benefits of specific planting techniques recommended in the range planting standard, and assessment of specific conservation effects of alternative vegetation states.
View article.
This study compared mechanical and chemical treatments to control crested wheatgrass and found that effective control can require secondary treatments to reduce the seed bank and open stands to dominance by seeded native species. Manipulation of crested wheatgrass stands to restore native species carries the risk of weed invasion if secondary treatments effectively control the wheatgrass and native species have limited survival due to drought.
View article.
This paper provides a decision framework that integrates fire regime components, plant growth form, and survival attributes to predict how plants will respond to fires and how fires can be prescribed to enhance the likelihood of obtaining desired plant responses.
View field guide.
This field guide provides substantial evidence that pinon-juniper woodlands have experienced major expansion in their distribution since the late 1800s by encroaching into surrounding landscapes once dominated by shrubs and herbaceous vegetation. Both infilling and expansion affects soil resources, plant community structure and composition, water and nutrient cycles, forage production, wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and fire patterns across the landscape. Another impact is the shift from historic fire regimes to larger and more intense wildfires that are increasingly determining the future of this landscape.
Visit the SageSTEP website, for links to all past newsletters.
View synthesis.
This synthesis documents what is known about the history, biology, ecology, and management of western juniper. This synthesis will provide guidance for defining long-term goals, setting management priorities, and developing management plans and strategies related to western juniper. It is separated into six major sections: 1) distribution and history of woodland expansion, 2) life history and biology, 3) ecology; 4) hydrology, 5) restoration and management, and 6) management guidelines.
View article.
This study describes a three-step process to reduce crested wheatgrass competition, introduce desired species, and manage to maintain desired species for use long term.