Grazed lands and Ground Cover in the Southwestern U.S.

A) Map depicting location of the study area within the four-corner’s region of the southwestern US (black star), Colorado Plateau (shaded region), and distribution of the saline Mancos Shale deposits (blue); B) soil cover examples with low groundcover in grazed area; C) high groundcover due to high biological soil crust cover in ungrazed watersheds; D) county-level cattle and sheep totals from the study area; E) comparisons of ground cover in 1953 (before grazing exclosures erected), 1963, 1972, and 2004 (error bars represent standard error of the means; watersheds as the experimental units, n = 4 per treatment). (Adapted from Duniway et al., 2018).