Edge effects along roadside fuel treatments in sagebrush steppe
Does the construction of fuel breaks in sagebrush steppe increase the risk of exotic grass invasion? Researchers surveyed for invaders along fuel break edges to find out.
Roadside fuel breaks are built to improve safety and access for firefighters. There is concern that the process of building fuel breaks may disturb plants and soils in ways that favor the invasion of exotic plants. The long, linear shape of fuel breaks means there is a high edge-to-area ratio relative to other land treatment types, and edges are prone to invasion. Researchers measured the abundance of the invasive plants cheatgrass and Russian thistle along the edges of fuel breaks constructed after the 2015 Soda Wildfire. The Bureau of Land Management used a variety of methods—including mowing, shrub cutting, and herbicide treatment-- for creating fuel breaks depending on the types of plants present and burn history. Both cheatgrass and Russian thistle cover increased within thirty feet of fuel break edges. However, invasive plant abundance was below the level land managers often use to assess the risk of conversion to annual grasslands or intensified fire behavior.
Price, S.J., Germino, M.J., and Watt, C.R., 2024, Edge effects along roadside fuel treatments in sagebrush steppe: Rangeland Ecology and Management, v. 98, p. 155-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.031
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.