Rangeland Ecology & Management最新文献

{"title":"From a Bird to a Biome: Exploring the Sage Grouse Initiative's Role in Defending and Growing Sagebrush Core Areas","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.015","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.015","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has served as a primary delivery mechanism for Farm Bill investments in voluntary conservation of private rangelands in the western U.S. for fifteen years. Consistent with interagency efforts to extend conservation beyond sage-grouse to the entire sagebrush biome, the SGI has evolved to focus on conservation actions that benefit wildlife by addressing complex ecosystem problems undermining the resilience of working lands. Recent development of the Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) provides a common framework to coordinate the efforts of many partners invested in saving the biome's last remaining intact sagebrush ecosystems. In this forum paper, we explore the history of the SGI's strategic conservation on private lands relative to the SCD and reflect on how it could be used to improve future conservation delivery. From 2010 to 2022, NRCS contributed $423USD million in Farm Bill funds through SGI to easements, conifer removal, and invasive annual grass management with the shared goal of defending and growing Core, with most SGI actions occurring in Core (6–14%) and Growth (an additional 40–57%). The SCD's ecological integrity scores suggest that SGI-funded conifer removal has either reversed (7) or halted (2) the degradation attributable to conifer encroachment in nine focal landscapes. Concentrating conifer removals together was 20% more effective at restoring Core and Growth than the 5% gains realized among scattered, isolated treatments. Our evaluation also shows that invasive annuals are undermining the integrity of initial SGI investments and warrant more attention to defend and grow Core. Embracing the SCD could help the SGI more effectively achieve desired wildlife outcomes given the biological relevance of Cores to sage-grouse and sagebrush-obligate songbirds.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142438041","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(24)00175-1","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S1550-7424(24)00175-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142438043","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":"Modeling Cropland Conversion Risk to Scale-Up Averted Loss of Core Sagebrush Rangelands","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cropland conversion is anticipated to continue westward from the Great Plains into the sagebrush (<em>Artemisia</em> spp.) biome – the most intact biome remaining in the conterminous United States. However, relatively little is known about the extent and risk of cropland conversion to sagebrush ecosystems and the landscape scale benefits of easements in averting loss of ecological function. Therefore, our goals were to 1) quantify the cropland area of the sagebrush biome, 2) identify where the highest quality sagebrush rangelands are most at risk to future cropland conversion, and 3) estimate the ecological benefits of conservation easements to adjacent public lands. We found that croplands span 14.4 million ha in the sagebrush biome, 16.2 million ha in the historic range of the greater sage-grouse (<em>Centrocercus urophasianus</em>), and are clustered regionally. Our spatial risk model identified 3.7 million ha of high-quality sagebrush rangelands in need of conservation protections from cropland conversion, with higher risk areas clustered regionally (e.g., Northern Great Plains). Our estimates of previous losses to cropland conversion indicated that roughly 80% of at-risk high-quality sagebrush communities have already been tilled. Spatial data and online maps of our risk model are publicly available as planning tools for prioritizing conservation and restoration actions in support of the Sagebrush Conservation Design framework. Using a case study from north-central Montana, we demonstrated that private land easements are crucial for the preservation of Core Sagebrush Areas (CSAs). These easements were found to indirectly preserve an area of CSAs that is 3.6 times larger than the easements themselves. Notably, a significant portion of this conservation benefit—approximately 80%—occurred on public lands adjacent to the easements. Our findings establish a clear connection between investments in private land conservation and beneficial outcomes on nearby public lands, and that focused, permanent protection efforts can extend ecosystem function beyond easements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437973","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":"An Assessment of Conservation Opportunities Within Sagebrush Ecosystems of US National Parks and Wildlife Refuges","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.09.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.09.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Strategic plans for landscape-scale conservation are preferable to ad-hoc decisions that lack evidence and cohesion. The Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) is a biome-wide geospatial decision-support framework for a “Defend the Core, Grow the Core” strategy. We mapped US National Parks and Refuges across the SCD to guide “defend and grow” investments. We summarized amounts of sagebrush “Core Sagebrush Areas” (CSAs) and “Growth Opportunity Areas” (GOAs) areas within Parks and Refuges and asked: 1) Where are the Parks and Refuges that contain substantial sagebrush resources and that are likely to retain these resources under future climate conditions? 2) What is the trend of loss across CSAs and GOAs within Parks and Refuges? 3) Do trends immediately surrounding Parks and Refuges correlate with those within? 4) Which Parks and Refuges contain the most CSAs and GOAs? 5) What will it cost to defend and grow CSAs in these places?</div><div>Approximately 127 000 ha (313 824 ac) or 75% of CSAs was lost from Parks and 87 000 ha (214 982 ac) or 25% was lost from Refuges since 1998. Climate change is likely to reduce CSAs and GOAs in the northeastern and southwestern biome periphery and at low elevations. Similar trends of loss were observed surrounding Parks and Refuges. This underscores the ‘outside-in’ nature of changes occurring in the biome as fires, conifer encroachment, and invasive grasses move rapidly through permeable landscapes. Ten Parks and 10 Refuges contain &gt;95% of CSAs and GOAs and exhibit climate durability under our examined future scenario, revealing how investments can be prioritized. Within this list, however, estimated costs of recommended actions (e.g., annual grass suppression) greatly exceeds plausible available amounts, emphasizing the need to use strategic prioritization within high-priority units. We examined application of the SCD for guiding “open” and “defined” investment decisions for Park and Refuge case studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437975","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":"A Spatial Prioritization of Conifer Management to Defend and Grow Sagebrush Cores","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sagebrush ecosystems across the western U.S. are in decline due to numerous threats, including expansion of coniferous woodlands and forests. The interagency Sagebrush Conservation Design effort recently quantified sagebrush ecological integrity (SEI) to map remaining core sagebrush areas (relatively intact and functional sagebrush ecosystems) and understand spatial and temporal patterns of change relative to primary threats. Recent work has identified conifer expansion as the second leading cause of decline in sagebrush ecological integrity biome wide. Here, we sought to create a spatial prioritization of conifer management that maximizes return-on-investment to defend and grow core sagebrush areas. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was used to incorporate a series of biome-level inputs including SEI, invasive annual grass cover and risk, structural connectivity, and conifer cover and expansion vulnerability into a single prioritization based on collaborative expert input. Our analysis identifies priority areas for conifer management across the sagebrush biome, simulates conifer treatments based on those priorities, and estimates potential changes in SEI as a result of targeted treatment. At a broad scale, we found that the highest priority areas for conifer management were largely located east of the Rocky Mountains. This represents a departure from recent landscape-level trends of conifer management efforts in sagebrush systems, which were focused primarily on pinyon-juniper expansion in the Great Basin. A majority (52%) of the highest priority areas are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a large proportion (26%) of priority areas located on privately-owned land – particularly in Wyoming and Montana. Targeting simulated conifer treatments using our prioritization resulted in higher within-core targeting percentages (≥93%) than business-as-usual efforts (23.8%), which would result in a four- to eight-fold reduction in the time to treat priority areas within cores. Finally, we demonstrate that these simulated treatments, targeted with our prioritization, have the capacity to improve SEI in and around treatment areas. This work provides an actionable path to “Defend the Core” as outlined by the Sagebrush Conservation Design effort by helping conservationists more efficiently address conifer expansion in and around core sagebrush areas.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437971","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":"The Carbon Security Index: A Novel Approach to Assessing How Secure Carbon Is in Sagebrush Ecosystems Within the Great Basin","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Rangeland carbon is often conceptualized similarly to intensively managed agricultural lands, in that we need to sequester and store more carbon. Unlike intensively managed agricultural lands, rangeland soils cannot sequester more carbon due to pedogenic and climatic limitations that influence plant community and microbial community dynamics. This requires a new paradigm for rangeland carbon that focuses on maintaining carbon security following disturbances like fire and plant community conversions (e.g., annual grasslands and conifer woodlands). To attain this, we propose the creation of a Carbon Security Index (CSI). CSI is a unitless, scalable value that can be used to compare carbon security across rangeland sites and over time and incorporates a plant fractional cover ratio, resistance and resilience, and wildfire probability. Using the Great Basin as a case study, we found that CSI decreased by 53% basin wide from 1989 to 2020. Using the Sagebrush Conservation Design's sagebrush ecological integrity categories across the Great Basin, we found that CSI in “core” areas remained relatively unchanged between 1998 and 2020 (decreased by 1%), whereas “growth opportunity” areas CSI began to change (decreased by 13%) and “other rangeland” areas CSI decreased by 67%. We found that CSI was able to act as an indicator for determining when carbon security would decrease several years prior to a wildfire disturbance, which then rapidly reduced CSI. Finally, we created a carbon security management map to help prioritize potential management for achieving greatest carbon security and locations for restoration. These results show that CSI provides landowners and land managers an opportunity to assess how secure their carbon is on the land and help them prioritize areas for restoration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437888","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":"Will It Burn? Characterizing Wildfire Risk for the Sagebrush Conservation Design","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For millennia, wildfire has helped shape the sagebrush biome of the western United States. Over recent decades, historical fire regimes have been altered by several factors, including contemporary climate and fuel conditions, leading to the loss or degradation of hundreds of thousands of hectares (ha) of sagebrush each year. In response to wildfire threats, extensive fuel treatment investments are proposed across the region. To help inform strategic and cost-effective investments, we conducted a quantitative assessment of wildfire risk for the sagebrush biome. We used a geospatial fire modeling approach, customized for the sagebrush biome, to estimate spatially explicit burn probability and expected average annual area burned within three Sagebrush Ecological Integrity classes under the Sagebrush Conservation Design: Core Sagebrush Areas (CSAs), Growth Opportunity Areas (GOAs), and Other Rangeland Areas. We further used indices of ecological resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasive grasses to characterize fire risk and recovery potential. Our approach indicates that nearly 530,000 ha are likely to burn in a typical contemporary fire year across the highest integrity Sagebrush Ecological Integrity classes (7% in CSAs and 31% in GOAs). Of the CSAs and GOAs likely to burn, nearly 9 000 and 66 000 ha, respectively, are expected to have low resilience or resistance and therefore highest loss potential. Cost-effective conservation investments should include wildfire protection for high-integrity sagebrush with low resilience or resistance. Protection objectives may be met with strategically placed fuel breaks intended to enhance fire prevention and containment efforts. Fuel treatments, including prescribed fire and mechanical activities outside of fuel breaks, are by contrast best suited for high-integrity areas with relatively high resilience and resistance. Those activities should be risk-informed and intended to maintain or improve ecological integrity and resilience to wildfire rather than to exclude fire altogether.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437974","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":"State of the Sagebrush: Implementing the Sagebrush Conservation Design to Save a Biome","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.017","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.017","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This special issue of Rangeland Ecology and Management is dedicated to applying the Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) to improve conservation outcomes across the sagebrush biome in the face of pervasive ecosystem threats. This special issue provides new science and real-world examples of how we can implement the SCD to save a biome. The SCD is a tool to identify intact sagebrush areas and address the largest threats to the ecosystem. The SCD focuses on first protecting intact and functioning sagebrush ecosystems, called Core Sagebrush Areas, then works outward toward more degraded areas (i.e., “Defend the Core”). The premise behind the Defend the Core approach is simple: focus resources first on preventative actions that retain ecosystem services in Core Sagebrush Areas because they are more cost-effective and more likely to be successful. The opening article of this special issue creates a foundation for the 19 following papers, providing a coherent path for implementing the SCD. The overarching themes are: 1) Business-As-Usual Won't Save the Sagebrush Sea, 2) Better Spatial Targeting Can Improve Outcomes, 3) Conservation Planning is Needed to Develop Realistic Business Plans, 4) Targeted Ecosystem Management: Monitoring Shows Managing for Sagebrush Ecological Integrity is Working, 5) Maintaining Sagebrush Ecological Integrity is Ecologically Relevant, and 6) There is Only Hope if We Manage Change. The collective articles show that there is no shared plan to save the biome, yet a business plan for the biome could ensure realistic goals. The sagebrush biome still has vast expanses of open spaces with high ecological integrity at a scale that is rare in other ecological systems within the lower 48 states. If we focus on the common ground of the main drivers of ecosystem change, implementing the SCD and Defending the Core are viable strategies to help save a biome.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142438045","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":"Evaluating the Sagebrush Conservation Design Strategy Through the Performance of a Sagebrush Indicator Species","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.021","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.021","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sagebrush ecosystems support a suite of unique species such as the emblematic greater sage-grouse (<em>Centrocercus urophasianus</em>; sage-grouse) but are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic stressors such as annual grass invasion, conifer encroachment, altered wildfire regimes, and land use change. We examined the ability of an ecosystem-based framework for sagebrush conservation, the sagebrush conservation design (SCD) strategy, and the associated model of sagebrush ecological integrity (SEI), to identify and rank priority habitats for sage-grouse, a sagebrush indicator species. We compared sage-grouse population trends from 1996–2021 across the three ranked SEI categories. We then modeled those trends directly as a function of the same landcover predictors underlying SEI, used the median trend estimates to recategorize the sage-grouse's range, and used spatial correlation methods to compare our sage-grouse performance categories with those of SEI. Finally, we compared the sage-grouse condition categories, predicted by our landcover-based model, to empirical trends derived from population count data. We found that the SCD and SEI were effective tools for identifying and ranking priority habitats for sage-grouse. Population trends were stable in the core areas identified by SEI but declining in the lower (i.e., growth and other) condition categories. As a result, core areas encompassed an increasingly larger share of the total sage-grouse population in a disproportionately smaller area. Our model supports the general functional relationships between landcover and sage-grouse performance suggested by SEI. We found strong spatial congruence between our categories of predicted sage-grouse population performance, the condition categories of SEI, and empirical trends derived from population count data. Our analysis demonstrates that proactive ecosystem-based approaches to the conservation of the sagebrush biome can help optimize the return on limited conservation resources and benefits for sagebrush obligate species and help reduce some of the real and perceived conflicts inherent in single-species management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437886","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":"An Interactive Tool to Promote Stepping Down the Sagebrush Conservation Design to Local Conservation Planning","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Conservation efforts for the sagebrush biome in the western United States have been significant, but habitat loss and degradation are currently outpacing collective conservation efforts. The Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD), cocreated by scientists and managers working across the biome, issues an urgent call to action to radically reprioritize conservation efforts to save the biome. At the heart of SCD is the “defend and grow the core” strategy, which means prioritizing conservation in intact sagebrush areas with native understories and low levels of threats, as opposed to the business-as-usual approach of treating all threats or focusing on areas with the most severe threats. However, SCD applications are limited by the capacity of land managers to integrate maps of rangeland conditions and threats into planning processes for their management area. To increase the integration of spatial data and help managers and planners step down SCD to local-scale conservation planning, we developed a web application that provides a user-friendly interface. Here, we lay out a guide for web application users, which we hope will empower land managers to make strategic conservation decisions that best protect the sagebrush biome.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142437976","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}