Thousands of acres of Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis) habitat have been mowed throughout Nevada and the surrounding Great Basin to create fuelbreaks for wildfire control, enhance resilience and resistance to invasive exotic plant species, increase perennial herbaceous understory, and improve wildlife habitat. To improve understanding of how these plant communities respond to mowing and whether treatment goals are being met, an observational study of 67 paired mowed and unmowed locations was conducted between 2010 and 2015 across the geographic extent of Wyoming big sagebrush in Nevada. Each study location was randomly located in a unique soil map unit within a unique mow treatment. Mow treatments were of different ages, and a different subset of the 67 locations was visited in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014. Foliar cover and sagebrush canopy volume data were collected in these years. In 2015, all the study locations were visited, and foliar cover, perennial herbaceous density, and soil profile data were collected. The data were analyzed to answer several questions. Does mowing Wyoming big sagebrush plant communities result in an increase in herbaceous perennial cover or density? Does the resulting shift in plant community composition improve resilience or resistance to invasive exotic plant species? How do these plant communities change relative to the age of the mow treatment? Are there different plant community responses based on soil, site, or unmowed plant community attributes? Are mow treatments effective as fuelbreaks, and if so, for how long? Addressing these questions empowers land managers to improve and optimize their use of mowing as a management tool.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.