Rangeland Ecology & Management

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A COMPARISON OF TWO VEGETATION HEIGHT METHODS FOR GREATER SAGE-GROUSE HABITAT SUITABILITY EVALUATIONS.
Author
Perry, Sean F.
McCord, Sarah E.
Karl, Jason
Stauffer, Nelson
Boucher, Caitlyn
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2016
Body

Conservation of Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat has become an important issue for U.S. federal land agencies as habitat is lost or degraded across the American West. This drives a need for data collection in sage grouse habitat to assess the habitat status. Published in 2015, the BLM technical reference Sage-Grouse Habitat Assessment Framework (HAF) describes three categories of habitat suitability (suitable, marginal, and unsuitable) in part defined by height of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), grasses, and forbs. The HAF also recommended a method for measuring vegetation heights. However, existing monitoring efforts like the BLM Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) program and the NRCS National Resources Inventory use a different method for measuring vegetation height-described in volume I of the Monitoring Manual for Grassland, Shrubland, and Savanna Ecosystems. We recognize that method of measuring vegetation has strengths as well as shortcomings, for example the HAF method may under-represent sparsely distributed, small plant species and the Monitoring Manual method may under-represent species that cover a small percentage of the sampling unit. As a result, our objective was to test how the results of the Monitoring Manual's vegetation height method compared to the HAF's height protocol. We compared vegetation height measurements for shrubs, forbs, and grasses using both methods in southern New Mexico, the BLM San Luis Field Office in Colorado, and the BLM Bruneau Field Office in Idaho. In many cases, we found differences between the two vegetation height methods to be minimal. We therefore conclude that Monitoring Manual vegetation height data are likely sufficient for evaluating sage grouse habitat suitability with the HAF. Where compatible vegetation height data already exist or are being gathered, these data should be able to satisfy the requirements for HAF habitat suitability assessments.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Corpus Christi, TX