Posts Tagged ‘Herbicide treatment’
Guide to vegetation treatment costs for land management in the Great Basin region
View fact sheet. High and low costs represent those commonly reported by SageSTEP collaborators and the NRCS in 2010 and 2011. Costs reported here are meant to provide a starting point only and should be verified through additional research. Many of these treatments are eligible for cost share assistance through the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives…
Read MorePublic perceptions of sagebrush ecosystem management: A longitudinal panel study of residents in the Great Basin, 2006-2010
View dissertation. The study uses data from a mail-back questionnaire sent to residents in 2006 and again in 2010. Overall, 698 respondents comprise the panel of interest. Results suggest landscape scale events such as wildfire, as well as agency management and outreach programs, had little influence on respondents’ perceptions of agencies or management options over…
Read MorePublic perceptions of sagebrush ecosystem management in the Great Basin
View article. Intact sagebrush communities in the Great Basin are rapidly disappearing because of invasion of nonnative plants, large wildfires, and encroachment of pinyon and juniper woodlands. Land management options, including the use of prescribed fire, grazing, herbicides, or mechanical treatments, can reduce the potential for wildfire and restore plant communities. Public acceptance of management…
Read MoreNot all fuel-reduction treatments degrade biocrusts: Herbicides cause mostly neutral to positive effects on cover of biocrusts
View article. In response to increasing fire, fuel-reduction treatments are being used to minimize large fire risk. Although biocrusts are associated with reduced cover of fire-promoting, invasive grasses, the impact of fuel-reduction treatments on biocrusts is poorly understood. We use data from a long-term experiment, the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project, testing the following fuel-reduction…
Read MoreTen-year ecological responses to fuel treatments within semiarid Wyoming big sagebrush ecosystems
View article. Sagebrush ecosystems of western North America are threatened by invasive annual grasses and wildfires that can remove fire-intolerant shrubs for decades. Fuel reduction treatments are used ostensibly to aid in fire suppression, conserve wildlife habitat, and restore historical fire regimes, but long-term ecological impacts of these treatments are not clear. In 2006, we…
Read MoreFuel reduction treatments reduce modeled fire intensity in the sagebrush steppe
View article. Increased fire size and frequency coupled with annual grass invasion pose major challenges to sagebrush ecosystem conservation, which is currently focused on protecting sagebrush community composition and structure. A common strategy for mitigating potential fire is to use fuel treatments that alter the structure and amount of burnable material, thus reducing fire behavior…
Read MoreEpigaeic spider response to sagebrush steppe restoration treatments
View article. Epigaeic (ground-active) spiders are dominant predators of arthropods and are important prey for vertebrates in sagebrush steppe systems. As part of the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP), the response of epigaeic spiders to sagebrush steppe restoration treatments was evaluated. Spiders were pitfall trapped pre-treatment and for up to 7 years post-treatment at 20…
Read MoreThe effect of invasive annual plants on wildfire suppression costs
View thesis. Preventative fuel treatment is an effort such as thinning of brush and young trees, herbicidal treatment of invasive grasses, controlled fires to reduce fuel loads, and other actions to reduce the probability that a wildland fire will be a catastrophic wildfire that results in further expansion of invasive grasses, losses to ecological integrity,…
Read MoreThe frying pan or the fire: Public attitudes about using herbicides to manage invasive weeds
View article. This paper assesses hypotheses derived from instrumental rationality and risk society theories about the reasoning strategies that people will use to develop views supportive or oppositional to the use of herbicides to manage cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), an invasive weed. Cheatgrass is well-known in the population of the American West to increase wildfire risks…
Read MoreSoil resources influence vegetation and response to fire and fire-surrogate treatments in sagebrush-steppe ecosystems
View article. We used four study sites within the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) to evaluate 1) how vegetation and soil resources were affected by treatment, and 2) how soil resources influenced native herbaceous perennial and exotic annual grass cover before and following treatment. Treatments increased resin exchangeable NH4+, NO3-; H2PO4-, and K+, with…
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