Land Management

The use of rare plant habitat models in land management decisions can be constrained by issues surrounding data access, model quality, and institutional capacity, among other factors. This project seeks to understand challenges associated with using habitat models and explore avenues for addressing these challenges to facilitate greater use of habitat models in public lands decision making.

Tree-ring science is a component of our interdisciplinary ecological research program that focuses on the effects of drought and human land use on forest ecology, fire ecology, and ecohydrology.

The New Mexico Landscapes Field Station is a place-based, globally connected, ecological research group that studies ecosystem and wildlife dynamics, working with land managers, community leaders, and Tribes to deliver solutions that foster the linked health of human and natural systems. For over three decades, we have focused on shifting research needs from forest watershed health to wildlife...

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to wildlife at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to forest ecosystems at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to fire at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Staff associated with the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus) management relies on the identification and protection of core habitat for the species. Core areas are often centered on leks where the potential impacts of anthropogenic development and other disturbances can be evaluated based on buffer distances around active leks. While buffer distances have been quantified for some regions, sage-grouse space...

To support the Department of Interior's bureaus, states, and local communities, we are developing 1) a document highlighting remote sensing approaches that can be leveraged for site prioritization, recovery design, and long-term assessments of recovery trends, and 2) data products of vegetation conditions, change, recovery potential, and risk of exotic plant invasion on mine lands. We will...

Resource management decisions need to be informed by up-to-date, quality science and data. However there is sometimes an overwhelming number of scientific publications for managers to consider in their decisions. This project provides concise summaries of recent, peer-reviewed science and data products about different resources and topics of management concern, integrated into a searchable tool.

This project analyzes on-the-ground plant monitoring data across sagebrush and rangeland ecosystems to examine how fire, climate, topography, and plant communities influence the success of invasive annual grasses after fires.

Wildlife management is frequently conducted to benefit a single species, despite evidence that suggests such an approach often fails to adequately address the needs of other species within a region. Managing for multiple species’ habitat requirements is even more critical when large scale habitat management efforts change vegetation conditions at the landscape scale, or when management occurs at...