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Implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) has resulted in the restoration of >2 million ha of wetland and grassland habitats in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Restoration of habitats through these programs provides diverse ecosystem services to society, but few investigators have evaluated the environmental benefits achieved by these programs. We describe changes in wetland processes, functions, and ecosystem services that occur when wetlands and adjacent uplands on agricultural lands are restored through Farm Bill conservation programs. At the scale of wetland catchments, projects have had positive impacts on water storage,...
Ecological evaluation is essential for remediation, restoration, and Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), and forms the basis for many management practices. These include determining status and trends of biological, physical, or chemical/radiological conditions, conducting environmental impact assessments, performing remedial actions should remediation fail, managing ecosystems and wildlife, and assessing the efficacy of remediation, restoration, and long-term stewardship. The objective of this paper is to explore the meanings of these assessments, examine the relationships among them, and suggest methods of integration that will move environmental management forward. While remediation, restoration, and NRDA,...
The alien grass Bromus tectorum dominates stable annual-plant communities that have replaced native shrub-perennial grass communities over much of the semi-arid western United States. We conducted field competition experiments between B. tectorum and a native grass, Elymus elymoides, on two sites to determine the effects of B. tectorum competition on perennial grasses, and the role of B. tectorum competition in the stability of B. tectorum-dominated communities. B. tectorum competition acting on seedling-stage E. elymoides plants greatly reduced first-year relative growth rates and biomass which, in turn, reduced second-year survival, biomass, and flowering. However, B. tectorum competition acting on older E. elymoides...
Dam removal is often proposed as way to restore ecological integrity to rivers and streams, but ecological responses to dam removals are poorly understood, especially for downstream benthic communities. We examined the responses of benthic macroinvertebrate and algal assemblages in downstream reaches to the removal of a small, run-of-river dam on Manatawny Creek, Pennsylvania. Benthic macroinvertebrates, algae, and habitat characteristics were monitored upstream and downstream of the dam for 4 mo before removal, 3 mo after partial removal (i.e., when the impoundment was largely eliminated but sediment remained trapped behind the remaining structure), and 12 mo after complete dam removal. Macroinvertebrate density,...
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This file represents the final version of an assessment of the extent, condition, and distribution of grassland types in Arizona as indicated by expert interviews and field verification. Coverage includes the state of Arizona, Southwestern portions of the state of New Mexico, and the Northern portion of Sonora, Mexico.
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Natural landscapes in the Southwestern United States are changing. In recent decades, rising temperatures and drought have led to drier conditions, contributed to large-scale ecological impacts, and affected many plant and animal species across the region. The current and future trajectory of climate change underscores the need for managers and conservation professionals to understand the impacts of these patterns on natural resources. In this regional assessment of the Southwest Climate Change Initiative, we evaluate changes in annual average temperatures from 1951–2006 across major habitats and large watersheds and compare these changes to the number of species of conservation concern that are found within these...
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Vegetation and land-cover changes are not always directional but follow complex trajectories over space and time, driven by changing anthropogenic and abiotic conditions. We present a multi-observational approach to land-change analysis that addresses the complex geographic and temporal variability of vegetation changes related to climate and land use. Using land-ownership data as a proxy for land-use practices, multitemporal land-cover maps, and repeat photography dating to the late 19th century, we examine changing spatial and temporal distributions of two vegetation types with high conservation value in the southwestern United States: grasslands and riparian vegetation. In contrast to many reported vegetation...
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Conclusions: In fragmented watersheds, macrohabitat attributes measured at the patch scale were far more effective in predicting trout translocation success than measurements taken at the landscape scale Thresholds/Learnings: As a course filter indicator of cutthroat trout translocation success, the study found that translocations have a greater than 50% chance of fruitful establishment in watersheds >14.7km2 in area. Synopsis: This study aimed to identify stream-scale and basin-scale macrohabitat attributes limiting successful translocation and persistence of native cutthroat trout populations in fragmented landscapes along the Rio Grande. The study developed models of habitat attributes measured at two scales...
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Final Report - Executive Summary: This final project report is prepared to summarize the research project titled “Assessing evapotranspiration rate changes for proposed restoration of the forested uplands of the Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC)” for the Desert LCC of the Bureau of Reclamation as a requirement for closing out the project. This report includes the scope of work, summary of research project, results, and conclusions.Among all of the components of the terrestrial water cycle, evapotranspiration (ET) consumes the largest amount of water. Accurate estimation of ET is very important to understand the influence of ET to the hydrologic response of recharge and runoff processes in the water...
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2012, ATMOSPHERE, ATMOSPHERE, ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR, ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR, All tags...
Piñon pine and juniper woodlands in the southwestern United States are often represented as an expanding and even invasive vegetation type, a legacy of historic grazing, and culpable in the degradation of western rangelands. A long-standing emphasis on forage production, in combination with recent hazard fuel concerns, has prompted a new era of woodland management with stated restoration objectives. Yet the extent and dynamics of piñon-juniper communities that predate intensive Euro-American settlement activities are poorly known or understood, while the intrinsic ecological, aesthetic, and economic values of old-growth woodlands are often overlooked. Historical changes in piñon-juniper stands include two related,...
Semiarid forests across the western USA and elsewhere are being thinned to reduce risk from fire, restore previous ecological conditions, and/or salvage trees from recently burned areas. Prescriptions and monitoring for thinning generally focus on biotic characteristics of vegetation, like tree density, rather than abiotic characteristics of soils and their loss, which are usually only considered in association with water erosion. Recent studies indicate that sediment transport by wind in forests is substantial and can exceed water transport, yet forest wind erosion responses to tree thinning and/or burning are unknown. We measured wind-driven horizontal dust flux, a metric related to wind erosion, with respect...
Greenhouse experiments were undertaken to identify soil factors that curtail growth of the exotic annual grass Bromus tectorum L. (cheatgrass) without significantly inhibiting growth of native perennial grasses (here represented by Hilaria jamesii [Torr.] Benth). We grew B. tectorum and H. jamesii alone (monoculture pots) and together (combination pots) in soil treatments that manipulated levels of soil phosphorus, potassium, and sodium. Hilaria jamesii showed no decline when its aboveground biomass in any of the applied treatments was compared to the control in either the monoculture or combination pots. Monoculture pots of B. tectorum showed a decline in aboveground biomass with the addition of Na2HPO4 and K2HPO4....
Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) has widely invaded the Great Basin, U.S.A. The sporadic natural phenomenon of complete stand failure (‘die- off’) of this invader may present opportunities to restore native plants. A recent die-off in Nevada was precision-planted with seeds of the native grasses Poa secunda (Sandberg bluegrass) and Elymus elymoides (bottlebrush squirreltail), of both local and nonlocal origin, to ask: 1) Can native species be restored in recent B. tectorum die-offs? And 2) Do local and nonlocal seeds differ in performance? Additionally, we asked how litter removal and water addition affected responses. Although emergence and growth of native seeds was lower in die-off than control plots early in year...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S143383191400105X): Floodplain forests are extremely productive for agriculture and historical floodplain forests have been converted to prime agricultural land throughout the world, resulting in disruption of ecosystem functioning. Given that flooding may increase with climate change and reforestation will increase resiliency to climate change, we tested whether reforested floodplains also have great potential to store carbon and the effects of even modest increases in forested acreage on carbon storage. To calculate potential aboveground biomass in the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (LMAV) of the United States, we determined current and historical...
The relevance of the boundary concept to ecological processes has been recently questioned. Humans in the post-industrial era have created novel lateral transport fluxes that have not been sufficiently considered in watershed studies. We describe patterns of land-use change within the Potomac River basin and demonstrate how these changes have blurred traditional ecosystem boundaries by increasing the movement of people, materials, and energy into and within the basin. We argue that this expansion of ecological commerce requires new science, monitoring, and management strategies focused on large rivers and suggest that traditional geopolitical and economic boundaries for environmental decision making be appropriately...
Dams are ubiquitous in coastal regions and have altered stream habitats and the distribution and abundance of stream fishes in those habitats by disrupting hydrology, temperature regime and habitat connectivity. Dam removal is a common restoration tool, but often the response of the fish assemblage is not monitored rigorously. Sedgeunkedunk Stream, a small tributary to the Penobscot River (Maine, USA), has been the focus of a restoration effort that includes the removal of two low-head dams. In this study, we quantified fish assemblage metrics along a longitudinal gradient in Sedgeunkedunk Stream and also in a nearby reference stream. By establishing pre-removal baseline conditions and associated variability and...
Dam removal is a potentially powerful tool for restoring riverine habitats and communities. However, the effectiveness of this tool is unknown because published data on the effects of dam removal on in-stream biota are lacking. We investigated the effects of a small dam removal on unionid mussels in Koshkonong Creek, Wisconsin (USA). Removal of the dam led to mortality both within the former impoundment and in downstream reaches. Within the former reservoir, mortality rates were extremely high (95%) due to des- iccation and exposure. Mussel densities in a bed 0.5 km downstream from the dam declined from 3.80 ± 0.56 mussels m)2 in fall 2000 immediately after dam removal to 2.60 ± 0.48 mussels m)2 by summer 2003....
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Grasslands of the Sky Islands region once covered over 13 million acres in southeastern Arizona and adjacent portions of New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua. Attempts to evaluate current ecological conditions suggest that approximately two thirds of these remain as intact or restorable grassland habitat. These grasslands provide watershed services such as flood control and aquifer recharge across the region, and continue to support dozens of species of concern. Prioritizing conservation interventions for these remaining grassland blocks has been challenging. Reliable data on condition and conservation value of grasslands in the region have not been systematically summarized. State and national boundaries further complicate...
The phenomenon of cheatgrass die-off is a common and naturally- occurring stand failure that can eliminate the presence of this annual grass for a year or more, affecting tens to hundreds of thousands of acres in some years. We designed a study to determine if the temporary lack of cheatgrass caused by die-offs is a restoration opportunity. We seeded native perennial species at three die-offs in the Winnemucca, Nevada area. Native grass establishment in die-offs was almost three times higher in the first season at all sites, relative to adjacent areas without die-off. In the second season, establishment was five times higher in the die-off at two sites, and plants were notably larger in the die-off at the third...
Content Changing aspen distribution in response to climate change and fire is a major focus of biodiversity conservation, yet little is known about the potential response of aspen to these two driving forces along topoclimatic gradients. Objective This study is set to evaluate how aspen distribution might shift in response to different climate-fire scenarios in a semi-arid montane landscape, and quantify the influence of fire regime along topoclimatic gradients. Methods We used a novel integration of a forest landscape succession and disturbance model (LANDIS-II) with a fine-scale climatic water deficit approach to simulate dynamics of aspen and associated conifer and shrub species over the next 150 years under...
map background search result map search result map Minimum habitat requirements for establishing translocated cutthroat trout populations. Extent and Condition of Grasslands in Arizona, Northern Mexico, and Southwestern New Mexico Sustaining the Grassland Sea Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States Historical and Contemporary Geographic Data Reveal Complex Spatial and Temporal Responses of Vegetation to Climate and Land Stewardship Report and Publications: Assessing Evapotranspiration Rate Changes for Proposed Restoration of the Forested Uplands of the DLCC Historical and Contemporary Geographic Data Reveal Complex Spatial and Temporal Responses of Vegetation to Climate and Land Stewardship Sustaining the Grassland Sea Minimum habitat requirements for establishing translocated cutthroat trout populations. Report and Publications: Assessing Evapotranspiration Rate Changes for Proposed Restoration of the Forested Uplands of the DLCC Extent and Condition of Grasslands in Arizona, Northern Mexico, and Southwestern New Mexico Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States