Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Sagebrush and Sage-grouse Publications

Recent publications related to Sagebrush and Sage-grouse are listed below.

Publications

Filter Total Items: 123

Monitoring for adaptive management of burned sagebrush-steppe rangelands: addressing variability and uncertainty on the 2015 Soda Megafire

• Use of adaptive management supported by robust monitoring is vital to solving severe rangeland problems, such as the exotic annual grass invasion and fire cycle in sagebrush-steppe rangelands.• Uncertainty in post-fire plant-community composition and plant response to treatments poses a challenge to land management and research but can be addressed with a high density of observations over short
Authors
Matthew Germino, Peter Torma, Matthew Fisk, Cara Applestein

Acute and lagged fitness consequences for a sagebrush obligate in a post mega-wildfire landscape

Species responses to disturbance influence their extinction risks. Greater sage- grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are bioindicators of sagebrush ecosystem health and the loss of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) due to wildfire, can cause long-term declines in sage- grouse populations and other sagebrush obligate species. We examined the de-mographic response of a greater sage- grouse population follow
Authors
Christopher R. Anthony, Lee J. Foster, Christian A. Hagen, Catherine M. Dugger

The role of genome duplication in big sagebrush growth and fecundity

PremiseAdaptive traits can be dramatically altered by genome duplication. The study of interactions among traits, ploidy, and the environment are necessary to develop an understanding of how polyploidy affects niche differentiation and to develop restoration strategies for resilient native ecosystems.MethodsGrowth and fecundity were measured in common gardens for 39 populations of big sagebrush (A
Authors
Bryce Richardson, Matthew Germino, Marcus V Warwell, Sven Buerki

Understanding the future of big sagebrush regeneration: challenges of projecting complex ecological processes

Regeneration is an essential demographic step that affects plant population persistence, recovery after disturbances, and potential migration to track suitable climate conditions. Challenges of restoring big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) after disturbances including fire-invasive annual grass interactions exemplify the need to understand the complex regeneration processes of this long-lived, wo
Authors
Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth, Robert K Shriver

Protecting restoration investments from the cheatgrass-fire cycle in sagebrush steppe

The US federal government has recently committed to the difficult task of slowing and managing the invasive grass-fire cycle in sagebrush steppe, where property, livelihoods, and entire ecosystems are at risk. To safely manage this crisis, the government recently proposed to construct about 17,700 km of fuel breaks and millions of hectares of fuel reduction treatments in six western states. A chal
Authors
David Pilliod, Michelle Jeffries, Justin L. Welty, Robert Arkle

Spatiotemporal dynamics of insect pollinator communities in sagebrush steppe associated with weather and vegetation

The conservation of native insect pollinators is hampered by a lack of information about environmental factors influencing pollinator communities. We investigated how insect pollinator communities, composed of bees (Hymenoptera), butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera), and flies (Diptera), are influenced by spatial and temporal aspects of the environment in sagebrush steppe shrublands. We assessed hy
Authors
Ashley Rohde, David S. Pilliod

Resilience to fire and resistance to annual grass invasion in sagebrush ecosystems of US National Parks

Western North American sagebrush shrublands and steppe face accelerating risks from fire-driven feedback loops that transition these ecosystems into self-reinforcing states dominated by invasive annual grasses. In response, sagebrush conservation decision-making is increasingly done through the lens of resilience to fire and annual grass invasion resistance. Operationalizing resilience and resista
Authors
Thomas J. Rodhouse, Jeffrey Lonneker, Lisa Bowersock, Diana Popp, Jamela Thompson, Gordon Dicus, Kathryn M. Irvine

Sagebrush recovery patterns after fuel treatments mediated by disturbance type and plant functional group interactions

Fire and fuel management is a high priority in North American sagebrush ecosystems where the expansion of piñon and juniper trees and the invasion of nonnative annual grasses are altering fire regimes and resulting in loss of sagebrush species and habitat. We evaluated 10-yr effects of woody fuel treatments on sagebrush recruitment and plant functional group interactions using Sagebrush Steppe Tre
Authors
Jeanne C. Chambers, Alexandra K. Urza, David I. Board, Richard F. Miller, David A. Pyke, Bruce A. Roundy, Eugene W. Schupp, Robin J. Tausch

Weather affects post‐fire recovery of sagebrush‐steppe communities and model transferability among sites

Altered climate, including weather extremes, can cause major shifts in vegetative recovery after disturbances. Predictive models that can identify the separate and combined temporal effects of disturbance and weather on plant communities and that are transferable among sites are needed to guide vulnerability assessments and management interventions. We asked how functional group abundance responde
Authors
Cara Applestein, Trevor Caughlin, Matthew Germino

Fire frequency impacts soil properties and processes in sagebrush steppe ecosystems of the Columbia Basin

Increased fire frequency in semi-arid ecosystems can alter biochemical soil properties and soil processes that underpin ecosystem structure and functioning, thus threatening native plant communities and the species that rely on them. However, there is much uncertainty about the magnitude of change as soils are exposed to more fires, because soil recovery and changes in fire severity following a fi
Authors
Leslie Nichols, Douglas J. Shinneman, Susan McIlroy, Marie-Anne de Graaff

A chemical and bio‐herbicide mixture increased exotic invaders, both targeted and non‐targeted, across a diversely invaded landscape after fire

QuestionsInvasive‐plant treatments often target a single or few species, but many landscapes are diversely invaded. Exotic annual grasses (EAGs) increase wildfires and degrade native perennial plant communities in cold‐desert rangelands, and herbicides are thus sprayed to inhibit EAG germination and establishment. We asked how EAG target and non‐target species responded to an herbicide mixture spr
Authors
Brynne E. Lazarus, Matthew J. Germino

Sagebrush conservation strategy—Challenges to sagebrush conservation

The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome, its wildlife, and the services and benefits it provides people and local communities are at risk. Development in the sagebrush biome, for many purposes, has resulted in multiple and often cumulative negative impacts. These impacts, ranging from simple habitat loss to complex, interactive changes in ecosystem function, continue to accelerate even as the need gr
Authors
Thomas E. Remington, Patricia A. Deibert, Steven E. Hanser, Dawn M. Davis, Leslie A. Robb, Justin L. Welty