Rangeland Ecology & Management最新文献

{"title":"Breeding Season Survival and Habitat Use of Scaled Quail in Southeastern New Mexico","authors":"Kiera L. Kauffman ,&nbsp;David W. Londe ,&nbsp;Craig A. Davis ,&nbsp;Samuel D. Fuhlendorf ,&nbsp;Laura E. Goodman ,&nbsp;Christian A. Hagen ,&nbsp;R. Dwayne Elmore","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent decades, woody plant cover has increased across many North American grasslands, with important implications for wildlife habitat availability. Scaled quail (<em>Callipepla squamata</em>), a declining ground-dwelling bird species, is known to use woody vegetation in arid and semiarid rangelands. However, it is unclear how vegetation changes due to woody encroachment affect scaled quail space use or if scaled quail perceive various species of woody cover differently. We examined breeding season habitat use and survival of scaled quail in 2018 and 2019 in southeastern New Mexico, USA, in a landscape with various species of shrubs, including mesquite (<em>Prosopis</em> L. spp.), which is thought to have increased over time. We used generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to compare vegetation characteristics between used quail locations and random (available) locations. We used resource selection functions (RSF) to examine selection for dominant vegetation cover types and anthropogenic features at the third order (within home ranges). We also investigated the influence of third-order selection and weather on quail survival (adult and brood). We found that both brooding and nonbrooding quail preferentially used locations with greater visual obstruction and high densities of tall (≥1.5 m) shrubs relative to availability. Within home ranges, scaled quail selected for proximity to mixed shrub cover, mesquite cover, and bare ground but demonstrated weak avoidance of herbaceous-dominated patches. However, third-order space use did not affect daily survival probability for either adult quail or broods. The only variable related to quail survival was daily average wind speed, which was positively associated with brood survival. Our findings highlight the importance of shrubs as a source of visual, thermal, and olfactory cover for scaled quail. In increasingly shrub-dominated communities, we recommend that scaled quail management plans prioritize practices that create spatially and compositionally diverse vegetation, including patches of tall, dense shrubs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 63-75"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143571475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Social Fit of Conservation Policy on Working Landscapes","authors":"Jeremy Pittman ,&nbsp;Raphael Ayambire ,&nbsp;Kwaku Owusu Twum","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The working landscapes approach is valuable for extending conservation beyond the boundaries of strict protected areas. Conservation on working landscapes relies heavily on social acceptance and the alignment of conservation programs with local livelihoods. This paper examines farmers and ranchers’ preferences for different policy instruments and incentives that form programs for endangered species conservation in Canada's temperate grassland ecosystem—one of the most imperiled ecosystems on earth. Generally, farmers and ranchers are more concerned about the restrictions that programs impose than they are about the amount of funding the programs provide. Although, trust in the program delivery agent is also a key consideration. Overall, farmers and ranchers prefer instruments that maintain their property rights and provide continuous financial incentives. Additionally, they prefer shorter-term contracts to longer-term contracts or agreements in perpetuity. Many of their preferences extend beyond status quo conservation in Canada, which relies heavily on restrictions, non-continuous financial incentives (i.e., one-time payments), and long-term agreements. We need to augment the existing suite of programs to include flexible and adaptive options to maintain, improve and protect grasslands and the species that depend on them.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 56-62"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecosystem Dynamics in Wet Heathlands: Spatial and Temporal Effects of Environmental Drivers on the Vegetation","authors":"Christian Damgaard","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To understand and estimate the effects of environmental drivers on temperate wet heathland vegetation, pin-point cover data from 42 Danish sites sampled during a 15-year period was regressed onto selected environmental variables. The effects of nitrogen deposition, soil pH, soil C–N ratio, soil type, precipitation, and grazing on the heathland vegetation was modeled in a spatiotemporal structural equation model using a Bayesian hierarchical model structure. The results suggest that the modeled environmental variables have various regulating effects on the large-scale spatial variation as well as plant community dynamics in wet heathlands. Most noticeably, nitrogen deposition and yearly precipitation had relatively large and opposite temporal effects on the characteristic species <em>Erica tetralix</em> and <em>Molinia caerulea</em>, where nitrogen deposition had negative effects on <em>E. tetralix</em> and positive effects on <em>M. caerulea</em>. The results of this study differed in important qualitative aspects from the findings of an earlier study where comparable data from a shorter time series (7 years instead of 15 years) were analyzed with a similar model, which suggests that relatively long time series are needed for studying ecosystem dynamics. Furthermore, it was concluded that the effect of nitrogen deposition on plant community dynamics mainly was through direct effects, whereas the effect of soil type on plant community dynamics was both direct and indirect mediated by the effect of soil type on soil pH. It was concluded that the modeled environmental variables are sufficient for predicting the <em>average</em> plant community dynamics of wet heathlands. However, caution is required if the fitted model is used for generating local ecological predictions as input to a process of generating adaptive management plans for specific wet heathland sites. Moreover, the results suggest that the ratio between the two species <em>E. tetralix</em> and <em>M. caerulea</em> may be used as an indicator for the conservation status of wet heathlands.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 47-55"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Seed-Yield Components, Reproductive Health, and Ecological Fitness of Six Snake River Wheatgrass Populations","authors":"T.A. Jones,&nbsp;T.A. Monaco,&nbsp;C.W. Rigby","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We compared six Snake River wheatgrass (<em>Elymus wawawaiensis</em> J. Carlson &amp; Barkw.) populations, including Destination Germplasm (released 2023), ‘Discovery’ (2007), and ‘Secar’ (1980), for seed-yield components, a reproductive-health score, ecological fitness, and persistence of fitness. In two consecutive years, we measured fecundity in a transplanted trial at North Park Farm (Hyde Park, UT) and survivorship (stand percentage) in a seeded trial at Nephi, UT. Across the six populations, seed yield per spike exceeded spike number in importance as a seed-yield component, seeds per plant exceeded seed mass, seeds per spike exceeded both spike number and seed mass, and seed area exceeded seed-specific mass. Compared to Discovery, from which it was derived, in 2022 (2023) at North Park, Destination displayed 61.1% (113.0%) greater seed yield per plant, 45.3% (81.6%) greater seed number per plant, and 14.4% (18.1%) greater seed mass (<em>P</em> &lt; 0.05). Destination's greater seed yield than Discovery in 2022 was accounted for by increases in seed mass, spike number, and seeds per spike in roughly a 1:2:1 ratio, though the latter was not significant (<em>P</em> &gt; 0.05). At Nephi in 2023 (2024), Destination displayed a 65.8% (32.1%) stand, while Discovery's stand was much lower at 34.0% (14.1%). Destination's reproductive-health score (15 of 16 possible points) exceeded Secar's (4) and Discovery's (1). Relative ecological fitness (and its persistence) was 1.000 (1.000) for Destination, 0.302 (0.662) for Discovery, and 0.147 (0.711) for Secar. By all measured parameters, Destination shows greater promise for rangeland revegetation and restoration efforts than Secar or Discovery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 38-46"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial Board/Journal Info","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/S1550-7424(25)00024-7","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S1550-7424(25)00024-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"99 ","pages":"Page IFC"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143548873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Browsing Promotes Drought Resistance of Wyoming Big Sagebrush in a Working Rangeland","authors":"Ashley Tribitt ,&nbsp;Lauren M. Porensky ,&nbsp;Sally E. Koerner ,&nbsp;Kimberly J. Komatsu ,&nbsp;Kurt Reinhart ,&nbsp;Kevin Wilcox","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Droughts are projected to become more extreme and more frequent throughout the remainder of the 21st century. Our ability to sustain rangeland functioning relies on understanding the interactive effects of extreme drought and herbivory on vegetation. Here, we report on an experiment in northeast Wyoming, USA that simulated five levels of drought intercepting 0 %, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 99% of ambient rainfall for two years. These treatments were crossed with two grazing intensity (50%, 70% utilization) and two browsing intensity (background, +50% leader removal) treatments. We measured canopy volume changes, leader growth, and leaf water potential on a dominant shrub, <em>Artemisia tridentata</em> ssp. <em>wyomingensis</em> (Beetle &amp; Young), to test three major predictions: (1) canopy volume and leader growth decline with greater drought magnitude, (2) heavy grazing reduces the effects of drought magnitude, and (3) heavy browsing amplifies effects of drought magnitude. Under ambient browsing intensity, extreme drought caused Wyoming big sagebrush (Beetle &amp; Young) canopies to shrink. Interestingly, this effect went away in our heavy browsing treatment, despite overall negative effects of heavy browsing on shrub canopies and leader survival. We show that this drought-buffering effect may be driven by reduced leaf-level water stress in droughted, heavily browsed shrubs compared with droughted, ambiently browsed shrubs; this may have resulted from lower early-season leaf area leading to lower transpiration-related water loss. This potential mechanism for drought resistance in sagebrush steppe highlights the importance of maintaining intact food webs, despite perceived deleterious effects of herbivores for plant abundance and growth. To promote sustainability of sagebrush and other shrub-dominated ecosystems in face of extreme precipitation change, it may be necessary for land managers and policy makers to prioritize conservation of native herbivores within ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 27-37"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143478711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Roles of Strong and Weak Social Ties in Collaborative Network Formation for Building Livelihood Resilience of Herders: A Case Study on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Bingbing Wei ,&nbsp;Haibin Chen ,&nbsp;Liqun Shao ,&nbsp;Xuexi Huo ,&nbsp;Xianli Xia","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In remote and sparsely populated pastoral areas where formal institution is often insufficiently supplied and slackly enforced, informal peer collaboration provides a critical support for local smallholder farmers to maintain livelihood resilience against uncertain environments. A set of key drivers to the formation of such self-organized collaboration have been identified by the existing literature, but studies that quantitatively investigate the roles of existing institution therein have been rarely seen, presumably because of measurement difficulty. Using household survey data collected from a case village on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, we applied network modeling methods to quantitatively examine the effects of preexisting strong and weak social ties on the formation of collaborative network among herders. The results show that the odds of establishing collaborative relationship between a pair of herders with a strong or weak tie was 21.06 or 10.86 times higher than those without, implying that trust and social norms embedded in the strong-tie network effectively reduced collaborative cost and mitigated collaborative risk, whereas novel nonredundant knowledge and resources carried by the weak-tie network facilitated collaboration across boundaries of social groups. Popularity and transitivity were two key endogenous structural relationship development mechanisms, signaling the emergence of Matthew effect and relational clusters. Social status and group affiliation were the key attributes that herders considered in choosing collaborative partners. To enhance livelihood resilience, local policymakers can regularly organize collective activities to reinforce emotional bonds between herders, and proactively engage with broader stakeholders to develop more diverse weak ties. Meanwhile, the leadership of central network actors should be fully mobilized and effectively supervised to facilitate successful collective actions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 14-26"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143464056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Geospatial Decision Support System for Urban and Rural Aquifer Resilience: Integrating Remote Sensing-Based Rangeland Analysis With Groundwater Quality Assessment","authors":"Hongwen Dai ,&nbsp;Abdul Quddoos ,&nbsp;Iram Naz ,&nbsp;Azra Batool ,&nbsp;Andaleeb Yaseen ,&nbsp;Muhammad Ali ,&nbsp;Hassan Alzahrani","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study presents a comprehensive assessment of groundwater quality across the urban-rural continuum of Lahore and Sheikhupura districts in Pakistan, employing an innovative approach that integrates geospatial analysis, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), remote sensing-based land use/land cover (LULC) classification, and simulated treatment scenarios. Utilizing a Geostatistical analytical hierarchy process (AHP) within a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework, we developed a groundwater quality index to evaluate contamination levels across 68 sampling points, while incorporating rangeland distribution analysis through remote sensing techniques. The study area encompassed diverse land use patterns, ranging from densely populated urban centers to rural agricultural lands and rangeland ecosystems. Our analysis revealed significant spatial variations in groundwater quality, with urban areas in Lahore district, particularly Lahore Cantt and Model Town tehsils, exhibiting higher levels of contamination compared to rural and rangeland areas in Sheikhupura district. The integration of LULC analysis revealed that rangeland areas, which constitute approximately 15% of the study area, showed distinct groundwater quality patterns, with generally lower contamination levels but specific vulnerabilities to certain pollutants. To address these water quality issues, we simulated various treatment scenarios, including reductions in heavy metals, chemical parameters, and specific contaminants such as arsenic, total dissolved solids (TDS), and hardness. The results demonstrated that tertiary treatment approaches, especially those targeting TDS and hardness, yielded the most substantial improvements in water quality. A 65% reduction in TDS and a 45% decrease in hardness led to significant enhancements, with some locations showing index value reductions of over 40%. Notably, our arsenic-specific treatment scenario revealed that a 90% reduction in arsenic levels could be sufficient for most locations, offering a potentially cost-effective approach to addressing this critical contaminant. The integration of GIS-based AHP, MCDA techniques, and remote sensing analysis proved instrumental in identifying contamination hotspots, understanding land use impacts, and evaluating the effectiveness of various treatment scenarios. This study's outcomes provide valuable guidance for policymakers and water management authorities in developing targeted, location-specific strategies for sustainable groundwater management across urban, rural, and rangeland landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"99 ","pages":"Pages 102-118"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143436965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quantifying Regional Ecological Dynamics Using Agency Monitoring Data, Ecological Site Descriptions, and Ecological Site Groups","authors":"Michael C. Duniway ,&nbsp;Anna C. Knight ,&nbsp;Travis W. Nauman ,&nbsp;Tara B.B. Bishop ,&nbsp;Sarah E. McCord ,&nbsp;Nicholas P. Webb ,&nbsp;C. Jason Williams ,&nbsp;Joel T. Humphries","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.12.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.12.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Information about what ecological conditions are likely, causes or drivers of degradation, and potential management actions to restore degraded lands may support land conservation and restoration decisions. State-and-transition models (STMs) describe persistent plant and ecological conditions that are possible (the “state”) within a given abiotic setting and drivers or actions that can cause shifts between states (the “transitions”). These primarily conceptual models are widely used to inform resource and conservation decisions. Data-driven STMs have been developed for some lands, but not at regional or national scales. Here, we demonstrate a new repeatable workflow for developing data-driven STMs in the United States (US). The approach leverages predictive maps of Ecological Site Groups (ESGs), extensive field-based Federal monitoring databases, information from Ecological Site Description (ESD) STMs, soil erosion models, remotely sensed productivity, and other available spatial information (fire, land protection, and drought) to provide context and descriptions of the data-driven states, including likely drivers of transitions. Results of this workflow applied to one dryland ESG in the Upper Colorado River Basin in the southwestern US suggest that an Invaded state (16% of 1352 plots) and some occurrences of a Grassland state (30% of plots) are in a degraded or at-risk condition with reduced ecosystem services. The most common drivers of state transitions in the associated ESDs (<em>n</em> = 26) are related to livestock grazing and fire. The Invaded state in the ESG has evidence of degraded habitat quality and accelerated run-off while the Grassland state occurrences show reduced richness, productivity, and elevated erosion risk by wind. Areas subject to wildfire and with lower protection status had greater probability of Invaded state occurrence, generally supporting drivers in ESDs. The workflow presented here can serve as a template for describing ecological dynamics at regional scales, and support prioritization of land for conservation and climate adaptation activities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"99 ","pages":"Pages 119-142"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143436966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial Scale Dependence of Error in Fractional Component Cover Maps","authors":"Matthew Rigge ,&nbsp;Brett Bunde ,&nbsp;Sarah E. McCord ,&nbsp;Georgia Harrison ,&nbsp;Timothy J. Assal ,&nbsp;James L. Smith","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.01.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Geospatial products such as fractional vegetation cover maps often report overall, pixel-wise accuracy, but decision-making with these products often occurs at coarser scales. As such, data users often desire guidance on the appropriate spatial scale to apply these data. We worked toward establishing this guidance by assessing RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) accuracy relative to a series of high-resolution predictions of component cover. We scale the 2-m and RCMAP predictions to various focal window sizes scales ranging from 30 to 1 500 m using focal averaging. We also evaluated variation in scaling effects on error at ecoregion and pasture (mean area of 1 050 ha) scales. Our results demonstrate increased accuracy at broader windows, across all components, and most increases in accuracy level off at ∼200–600 m scales. At the scale with highest accuracy, cross-component average correlation (<em>r</em>) increased by 6.5%, and root mean square error (RMSE) was reduced 46.4% relative to 30-m scale data. Scaling-related improvements to accuracy were greatest in components such as shrub and tree with more spatially heterogeneous cover and in ecoregions with more spatially heterogenous cover. When components were aggregated at the pasture scale, <em>r</em> increased 10% and RMSE decreased 34.3% on average relative to the 30-m scale. Our results provide empirical data on the scale dependence of error, which fractional cover data users may consider alongside their needs when using these data. Although the general principle remains that remotely sensed products are intended to address landscape-scale questions, our analysis indicates that applying data at finer than landscape spatial scales and grouping even a handful of pixels resulted in lowered error compared to pixel-level comparisons. Our results quantify the trade-offs between data granularity and error related to scale for fractional vegetation cover.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"99 ","pages":"Pages 77-87"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}