Rangeland Ecology & Management最新文献

Assessing the Influence of Defoliation on Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae) Seed Production and Viability in Eastern Oregon

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.03.003

William J. Price , April Hulet , K. Scott Jensen , Yanming Di , Jonathan B. Dinkins , Sergio A. Arispe

The invasive annual grass medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae [L.] Nevski) degrades the ecosystem function throughout the sagebrush biome of the western United States. Currently, there are knowledge gaps regarding the fecundity of medusahead and the ability of defoliation treatments (grazing and mowing) to reduce annual seed production. Our research aimed to 1) determine if the timing of defoliation impacts the quantity of seeds produced, and 2) evaluate the impacts of defoliation on the viability of medusahead seeds produced. We used a randomized complete block design (n = 20) in a near-monoculture of medusahead located in southeast Oregon to assess the effectiveness of defoliation three times (November, March, and May) against a nondefoliated control from 2019 to 2022. Outcomes included gross seed production, germination statistics, and a linear regression to rapidly estimate seed production dependent on inflorescence length. We found no evidence that defoliation in November or March reduced seed production relative to the control in all years (P > 0.05). However, the May defoliation produced fewer seeds than the control in all 3 yr (P < 0.05). Defoliation of medusahead had no impact on the viability of seeds produced, with mean germination rates >80% in all treatment-year combinations. Findings did indicate that the number of seeds produced per tiller is strongly correlated with the length of inflorescence (R² = 0.856), indicating that a generalized equation could be used to rapidly assess seed production in future works. The results of this study demonstrate that the effectiveness of defoliation is temporally limited and that the most effective treatments may still fail to reduce seed production by a meaningful degree. These findings indicate that defoliation treatments may be most effective included as a part of multifaceted, ecologically based treatments to effectively manage medusahead in the sagebrush biome.

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引用次数: 0

Manual Soil Resmoothing After Wild Boar Rooting Enables Resuming Mowing Management in Hay Meadows Without Hindering Vegetation Recovery

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.03.002

Alida A. Hábenczyus , Csaba Biró , Csaba Tölgyesi

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) is a widespread megaherbivore that can intensively disturb large areas of its habitat both in its native and non-native ranges, when populations reach high densities. The main problem is its rooting habit, which entails intensive disturbance of the topsoil and herbaceous layer. The extent of concomitant habitat degradation varies across ecoregions; some ecosystems are rather resilient, although the damages are long-lasting in others. In mown meadows, a secondary problem is the inability to resume mowing due to the uneven soil surface of rooted patches. This can lead to both economic loss and a loss of management-dependent biodiversity. We assessed the short-term effects of rooting on vegetation cover and composition in central European permanent hay meadows and tested the utility of manual soil surface resmoothing to enable the continuation of mowing. We found that rooting increased bare soil surface but vegetation recovery occurred within a year. Similarly, high resilience was found for species composition. We could not detect any difference between rooted and intact grassland patches after 1 yr. This short-term perturbation of the composition could be associated with a temporary decrease in grassland specialist species and an increase in ruderal and pioneer species. Soil surface resmoothing was an additional disturbance, but vegetation cover returned to the level of intact grasslands within a year. Vegetation composition needed a slightly longer time (2 yr) to recover than that without resmoothing. We thus recommend the application of manual resmoothing in hay meadows with high short-term resilience to rooting, but a risk of long-term degradation (e.g., shrub encroachment) if mowing is not resumed. In hay meadows with lower resilience (because of, e.g., steep slopes), resmoothing should be applied with caution and may be supplemented with seeding to support the recovery of the vegetation and prevent soil erosion.

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引用次数: 0

Variability in Weight Gains of Cows and Their Calves Across Grazing Management and Dam Age Class: Implications for Maternal Productivity

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-10 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.03.001

Devan Allen McGranahan , Megan R. Wanchuk , Kevin K. Sedivec , Marisol Berti , Kendall C. Swanson , Torre J. Hovick

Many beef producers in commercial rangelands rely on cow-calf operations. Unlike stocker operations, which typically seek to increase the weight of each animal over a grazing season, cow-calf producers often consider maternal productivity—the performance of both dam and calf—which affects a cow's lifetime reproductive output and longevity. Generally speaking, longer productive lives for cows reduce herd turnover and decrease costs for the producer. As rangeland grazing management strategies are evaluated, it is important also to consider their effects on maternal productivity, not just season-long weight gains. We compared 3 yr of cow and calf weight gains by dam age class to inform how patch-burn grazing, continuous grazing without fire, and rotational grazing might affect maternal productivity in an experimental Angus cow-calf herd in central North Dakota, United States. Overall, grazing management strategy explained variation in weight gain among cows, and dam age class explained variation in calf weight gains, leading us to conclude that mature cows (those with 4+ calves) on patch-burning and continuously grazed pastures had higher maternal productivity than cow-calf units on rotational grazing. When considered alongside previously published evidence that burned areas provided approximately twice as much net energy for maintenance, our data suggest that maternal productivity might be greatest among mature cows on patch-burned pastures, but this remains speculative until the actual intake of metabolizable energy for each cow-calf unit can be determined. These findings contribute further evidence of the potential for marginal gains to be found in grazing burned rangeland, with potentially direct positive effects on the financial viability of cow-calf operations.

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引用次数: 0

Costs of Land Treatments on Public Lands in the Western United States

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-10 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.03.004

James R. Meldrum , Christopher Huber , Adrian P. Monroe , Bryan C. Tarbox , Michelle I. Jeffries , David S. Pilliod , Cameron L. Aldridge

Public land managers often conduct rehabilitation and restoration actions to achieve desired conditions or specific natural resource objectives. These “land treatments” include a variety of techniques, such as biomass removal or manipulation, seeding, and herbicide application. Limited information exists on the costs of conducting many common types of land treatments, but such information can be paired with treatment effectiveness data to prioritize application of limited resources where they may have the greatest benefit and improve efficiency. Here, we investigated cost information recorded in the Land Treatment Digital Library, a catalog of legacy land treatment information on public lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management. Based on 1,701 treatment records across eleven western U.S. states, we developed empirical per-acre cost estimates for representative land treatments in eight categories: three seeding categories (aerial seeding, drill seeding, and seedling planting), prescribed burning, soil disturbance, soil stabilization, vegetation disturbance, and weed control. We evaluated spatio-temporal factors that may be associated with variation in treatment costs and found strong evidence for nonlinear decreases in per-acre costs as treatment areas increased and that per-acre treatment costs have increased in real terms in recent decades. We also found evidence that per-acre costs for drill seeding, prescribed burns, and soil stabilization increased with the average slope of the terrain of a treated area and that per-acre costs for prescribed burns, seedling planting, and soil stabilization were influenced by distance to urban areas or major roads. These results can inform planning, prioritization, and assessment of common land treatments on public lands in the western United States, in particular supporting greater consideration of costs and cost effectiveness.

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引用次数: 0

Developing Large-Scale Pasture Approaches to Quantify Forage Mass in Rangelands Using Drones

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-10 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.03.005

Michael T. Page , Humberto L. Perotto-Baldivieso , J. Alfonso Ortega-S , Evan P. Tanner , Jay P. Angerer , Rider C. Combs , Bradley K. Johnston , Melaine Ramirez , Annalysa M. Camacho , Alexandria M. DiMaggio , Dwain Daniels , Tony Kimmet

The use of drones has increased in recent years for monitoring and managing rangelands. High-resolution cameras and improved sensors provide an opportunity to investigate pasture-scale sampling methodology as an operational approach to estimate forage mass on rangelands using canopy height models derived from drone data. Our objectives were (1) to compare double sampling and vegetation clipping methods with very fine 3D data derived from drone-based imagery, (2) to compare forage mass estimation between methods using different numbers of drone-derived samples, and (3) estimate time efficiency of each one of these methods. To accomplish this, we acquired drone imagery in a 1 060-ha pasture in the South Texas Plains ecoregion in June 2020. We used two different pixel sizes for the drone image acquisition: 1.5 cm (50 m above ground level [AGL]) and 3.0 cm (100 m AGL). We compared six forage mass sampling approaches: double sampling (DS-ground), vegetation clipping (VC-ground), drone-double sampling at 50 m (drone-DS50) and 100 m (drone-DS100) AGL, and drone-vegetation clipping at 50 m (drone-VC50) and 100 m (drone-VC100) AGL. We generated 100 and 500 digital samples per site (total 700 and 3500 digital samples) to compare our estimates. Simple linear regression analyses were used to evaluate relationships between drone derived vegetation volume and the forage mass derived from DS and VC. We compared three sampling sizes: 70 field-based quadrats, 700, and 3,500 digital samples. Drone-VC50 with 700 5818 ± 78 kg · ha^-1) and 3,500 (5653 ± 34 kg · ha^-1) samples provided the smallest forage mass estimations at a large-pasture scale. Number of samples.h^-1 increased from 22 to 52 with the DS methods and 1.2 to 38 with the VC methods. Our results suggest that a combination of DS and VC with drone data collection could be a reliable approach for future drone-based forage estimation.

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引用次数: 0

Awareness and Social Interactions Influence Natural Resource Professionals’ Recommendations for Prescribed Fire Use

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-04-02 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.003

Urs P. Kreuter , Carissa L. Wonkka , Dirac Twidwell , Morgan L. Treadwell , N. Lee May

Restoring fire in fire-adapted ecosystems is necessary to curtail woody plant expansion, enhance biodiversity, and reduce wildfire risks, yet prescribed fire is promoted less by federal agencies than other grassland conservation practices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is the primary federal agency responsible for the delivery of rangeland conservation incentives to private landowners in the Great Plains. The degree to which NRCS employees choose to offer technical guidance on prescribed fire and whether they encourage landowners to consider financial support is not well-understood and varies among states. Our study explored the extent to which prescribed fire awareness and social interaction factors influence NRCS employees' knowledge and comfort level regarding prescribed fire and the frequency with which they recommend this conservation practice. The results show that while prescribed fire awareness influences knowledge, it was not significantly associated with frequency of prescribed fire recommendations. Rather, social interaction factors were significantly related to recommendation frequency; these included priority of prescribed fire education in their jobs, positive interactions with landowners regarding prescribed fire, and how often they were asked to deal with brush management. An important implication is that while better knowledge about prescribed fire is necessary, it is not sufficient for more frequent prescribed fire recommendation by natural resource professionals. Instead of focusing primarily on technical proficiency, federal agencies tasked with expanding the application of prescribed fire as an ecosystem restoration and wildfire mitigation tool should focus more on building stronger social networks through, for example, providing greater support of existing and new prescribed burning associations. Our findings also have implications for a national unified policy that supports the application of prescribed fire on privately-owned rangelands because negative fire culture at the federal level has an erosive effect on agencies’ willingness to assist landowners with prescribed fire applications.

{"title":"Awareness and Social Interactions Influence Natural Resource Professionals’ Recommendations for Prescribed Fire Use","authors":"Urs P. Kreuter , Carissa L. Wonkka , Dirac Twidwell , Morgan L. Treadwell , N. Lee May","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Restoring fire in fire-adapted ecosystems is necessary to curtail woody plant expansion, enhance biodiversity, and reduce wildfire risks, yet prescribed fire is promoted less by federal agencies than other grassland conservation practices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is the primary federal agency responsible for the delivery of rangeland conservation incentives to private landowners in the Great Plains. The degree to which NRCS employees choose to offer technical guidance on prescribed fire and whether they encourage landowners to consider financial support is not well-understood and varies among states. Our study explored the extent to which <em>prescribed fire awareness</em> and <em>social interaction</em> factors influence NRCS employees' knowledge and comfort level regarding prescribed fire and the frequency with which they recommend this conservation practice. The results show that while <em>prescribed fire awareness</em> influences knowledge, it was not significantly associated with frequency of prescribed fire recommendations. Rather, <em>social interaction</em> factors were significantly related to recommendation frequency; these included priority of prescribed fire education in their jobs, positive interactions with landowners regarding prescribed fire, and how often they were asked to deal with brush management. An important implication is that while better knowledge about prescribed fire is necessary, it is not sufficient for more frequent prescribed fire recommendation by natural resource professionals. Instead of focusing primarily on technical proficiency, federal agencies tasked with expanding the application of prescribed fire as an ecosystem restoration and wildfire mitigation tool should focus more on building stronger social networks through, for example, providing greater support of existing and new prescribed burning associations. Our findings also have implications for a national unified policy that supports the application of prescribed fire on privately-owned rangelands because negative fire culture at the federal level has an erosive effect on agencies’ willingness to assist landowners with prescribed fire applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 89-98"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143761022","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}

引用次数: 0

Water Quality for Livestock Across Oklahoma and Texas

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-03-29 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.005

Guilhermo F.S. Congio, Wyatt DeSpain, Eloá M. Araújo, Isabella C.F. Maciel

Ponds have been constructed by ranchers in Oklahoma and Texas to offer drinking water to livestock while helping to mitigate the consequences of extreme weather. In this study, the water composition of 72 ponds from ranches in Oklahoma and Texas was surveyed in October and November of 2023, with the objectives to: 1) assess pond water suitability for ruminant livestock consumption, and 2) examine bivariate and multivariate relationships among water quality parameters. Most of the parameters were well below the maximum acceptable upper levels. Even with average values within safe limits, pH, potassium, and manganese concentrations exceeded maximum upper levels in 6.9%, 18.1%, and 15.3% of ponds, respectively. A single pond had an unexpectedly high concentration of cadmium, which placed the average value above the maximum upper limit. Total coliform bacteria (TCB) and Escherichia coli were detected in 95.8% and 55.6% of the samples, respectively, and 39% of the samples exceeded the maximum upper level for TCB. Two major groups of intercorrelated variables identified by the Spearman correlation matrix were confirmed by principal component analysis. Most of the macroconstituents formed one positively intercorrelated group associated with electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids. The second group included several microconstituents that were positively correlated among themselves but negatively correlated with pH. Ensuring animals can access alternative safe water sources within pastures as well as rotating them among pastures throughout the ranch could potentially mitigate health issues when ponds present low-quality water.

{"title":"Water Quality for Livestock Across Oklahoma and Texas","authors":"Guilhermo F.S. Congio, Wyatt DeSpain, Eloá M. Araújo, Isabella C.F. Maciel","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ponds have been constructed by ranchers in Oklahoma and Texas to offer drinking water to livestock while helping to mitigate the consequences of extreme weather. In this study, the water composition of 72 ponds from ranches in Oklahoma and Texas was surveyed in October and November of 2023, with the objectives to: 1) assess pond water suitability for ruminant livestock consumption, and 2) examine bivariate and multivariate relationships among water quality parameters. Most of the parameters were well below the maximum acceptable upper levels. Even with average values within safe limits, pH, potassium, and manganese concentrations exceeded maximum upper levels in 6.9%, 18.1%, and 15.3% of ponds, respectively. A single pond had an unexpectedly high concentration of cadmium, which placed the average value above the maximum upper limit. Total coliform bacteria (TCB) and <em>Escherichia coli</em> were detected in 95.8% and 55.6% of the samples, respectively, and 39% of the samples exceeded the maximum upper level for TCB. Two major groups of intercorrelated variables identified by the Spearman correlation matrix were confirmed by principal component analysis. Most of the macroconstituents formed one positively intercorrelated group associated with electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids. The second group included several microconstituents that were positively correlated among themselves but negatively correlated with pH. Ensuring animals can access alternative safe water sources within pastures as well as rotating them among pastures throughout the ranch could potentially mitigate health issues when ponds present low-quality water.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 83-88"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143724916","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}

引用次数: 0

Corrigendum to ‘Integrating Erosion Models Into Land Health Assessments to Better Understand Landscape Condition’ [Rangeland Ecology & Management, Volume 96, September 2024, Pages 32-46]

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-03-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.004

Brandi Wheeler , Nicholas Webb , Jason Williams , Akasha Faist , Brandon E. Edwards , Jeffrey Herrick , Nika Lepak , Emily Kachergis , Sarah McCord , Beth Newingham , Nicole Pietrasiak , David Toledo

引用次数: 0

Simple Bioassay for Phytotoxic Concentrations of the Herbicide Indaziflam in Soil

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-03-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.007

Matthew J. Rinella, Elise M. Anderson, Kirsten A. Cook, Susan E. Bellows

Indaziflam is a relatively new herbicide that kills newly germinated plants. There is interest in using indaziflam to improve rangeland restoration but applying it around the time of seeding risks damaging seeded plants. A better strategy may be using indaziflam long before seeding to deplete weed seedbanks and then seeding after it dissipates. Dissipation rates vary and are difficult to predict, so testing is needed to determine whether indaziflam remains present. The manufacturer-recommended test involves seeding small indaziflam-treated areas and then monitoring for herbicide damage. A disadvantage here is that rangeland seeding is failure-prone, so seeded species can fail to emerge whether indaziflam is present or not. Another disadvantage is that test areas cannot be reliably evaluated until many months to a year after seeding, by which time evaluations are obsolete. We sought a more reliable, rapid bioassay. We gathered soil samples from nontreated and indaziflam-treated plots in two experiments treated 565 d and 204 d earlier. In these samples in a greenhouse, we planted seeds of native grasses (Elymus lanceolatus [Scribn. & J.G. Sm.] Gould and Pascopyrum smithii [Rydb.] Á. Löve) and an exotic invasive grass (Bromus japonicus Thunb.) and then measured plant responses. Plant densities and heights were similar across experiments. Indaziflam reduced native grass density 50% ± 8%, native grass height 74% ± 6% (mean ±SE), and exotic grass density and height nearly 100% (p < 0.05). The grasses that emerged from treated soil were discolored. Plant data were gathered 18 d after seeding, which illustrates that restoration managers can rapidly test for indaziflam in advance of seeding. To prevent being misled by natural variability among samples, we recommend testing ≥ five nontreated and treated soil samples. In addition to greenhouses, other well-illuminated areas held at 16–24°C are sufficient for testing.

{"title":"Simple Bioassay for Phytotoxic Concentrations of the Herbicide Indaziflam in Soil","authors":"Matthew J. Rinella, Elise M. Anderson, Kirsten A. Cook, Susan E. Bellows","doi":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Indaziflam is a relatively new herbicide that kills newly germinated plants. There is interest in using indaziflam to improve rangeland restoration but applying it around the time of seeding risks damaging seeded plants. A better strategy may be using indaziflam long before seeding to deplete weed seedbanks and then seeding after it dissipates. Dissipation rates vary and are difficult to predict, so testing is needed to determine whether indaziflam remains present. The manufacturer-recommended test involves seeding small indaziflam-treated areas and then monitoring for herbicide damage. A disadvantage here is that rangeland seeding is failure-prone, so seeded species can fail to emerge whether indaziflam is present or not. Another disadvantage is that test areas cannot be reliably evaluated until many months to a year after seeding, by which time evaluations are obsolete. We sought a more reliable, rapid bioassay. We gathered soil samples from nontreated and indaziflam-treated plots in two experiments treated 565 d and 204 d earlier. In these samples in a greenhouse, we planted seeds of native grasses (<em>Elymus lanceolatus</em> [Scribn. & J.G. Sm.] Gould and <em>Pascopyrum smithii</em> [Rydb.] Á. Löve) and an exotic invasive grass (<em>Bromus japonicus</em> Thunb.) and then measured plant responses. Plant densities and heights were similar across experiments. Indaziflam reduced native grass density 50% ± 8%, native grass height 74% ± 6% (mean ±SE), and exotic grass density and height nearly 100% (<em>p</em> < 0.05). The grasses that emerged from treated soil were discolored. Plant data were gathered 18 d after seeding, which illustrates that restoration managers can rapidly test for indaziflam in advance of seeding. To prevent being misled by natural variability among samples, we recommend testing ≥ five nontreated and treated soil samples. In addition to greenhouses, other well-illuminated areas held at 16–24°C are sufficient for testing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49634,"journal":{"name":"Rangeland Ecology & Management","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 78-82"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143697622","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}

引用次数: 0

Breeding Season Survival and Habitat Use of Scaled Quail in Southeastern New Mexico

IF 2.4 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Pub Date : 2025-03-07 DOI: 10.1016/j.rama.2025.02.001

Kiera L. Kauffman , David W. Londe , Craig A. Davis , Samuel D. Fuhlendorf , Laura E. Goodman , Christian A. Hagen , R. Dwayne Elmore

In recent decades, woody plant cover has increased across many North American grasslands, with important implications for wildlife habitat availability. Scaled quail (Callipepla squamata), 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 (Prosopis 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.

{"title":"Breeding Season Survival and Habitat Use of Scaled Quail in Southeastern New Mexico","authors":"Kiera L. Kauffman , David W. Londe , Craig A. Davis , Samuel D. Fuhlendorf , Laura E. Goodman , Christian A. Hagen , 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}

引用次数: 0