Search USGS⌕ Search
Home/Archive/USGS

USGS · 70229221

Monitoring for adaptive management of burned sagebrush-steppe rangelands: addressing variability and uncertainty on the 2015 Soda Megafire

Matthew J. Germino·Peter Torma·Matthew Fisk·Cara Applestein
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

• Use of adaptive management supported by robust monitoring is vital to solving severe rangeland problems, such as the exotic annual grass invasion and fire cycle in sagebrush-steppe rangelands. • Uncertainty in post-fire plant-community composition and plant response to treatments poses a challenge to land management and research but can be addressed with a high density of observations over short time frames. • The monitoring for adaptive management of the 2015 Soda Megafire area (113,000 Ha) sampled up to 2000 observation plots in each of five post-fire years, and provided important insights on challenges, solutions, and insights that can be applied to monitoring future burned areas.

Explore related subjects

RangelandsArticle
90° N90° S · 180° W ← longitude → 180° E
Source-reported bounding extent: 42.00848901572399° to 44.12702800650004° latitude; -118.564453125° to -116.20239257812499° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Matthew J. Germino, Peter Torma, Matthew Fisk, Cara Applestein. 2022. Monitoring for adaptive management of burned sagebrush-steppe rangelands: addressing variability and uncertainty on the 2015 Soda Megafire. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2021.12.002

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

USGS2024

Rangeland pitting for revegetation and annual weed control

On the Ground Soil pitting is an ancient technique for concentrating soil moisture to enable plant establishment and promote plant growth. It is especially effective in arid areas where plant establishment is limited by water availability. Pits created by digging and mounding action have been shown to be effective. Small pits made by soil compression are not very durable. Larger pits last longer and store more moisture. In mesic areas or years with above-average soil moisture, pitting may not be needed for plant establishment, and better results may be obtained by drill seeding. Pitting can help control some non-native annual plants by hindering their seed dispersal and concentrating their seeds within pits. This increases intraspecific competition and limits seed production. The pitting technique has been demonstrated in several studies as an effective control tactic for cheatgrass. Pitting is a strategy that may become more important as climates become hotter and more variable, as it allows soils to stay wetter for longer periods of time. Many custom-built machines have been developed to create soil pits efficiently. Commercially available machines are less common. Currently, pitters that dig and mound soil and are suitable for rangelands are not commercially available in North America.

Rangelands↗
USGS2024

Browsing the literature

For this edition of Browsing the Literature, we have two new papers from Rangeland Ecology & Management, a series of basic ecology papers with an international scope from journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Science, and Nature, and several papers advancing our understanding of drought and carbon at global scales. Additionally, several papers on sagebrush-steppe rangelands are covered with transferable insights to other rangeland types.

Rangelands↗