Get reliable rangeland science

Climate patterns can provide missing details and information related to historical and present day vegetation variation. However, there is a critical gap in the body of literature involving long-term changes in plant communities; particularly relative to climate and the effects climate has on secondary succession. The environment is competitive between invasive annual grasses and native perennial species in the sagebrush steppe ecosystem; especially after fire or other disturbances occur. This study was conducted on two exclosures located in southern Idaho that were previously tilled for farming, but abandoned in the early 1930�s. Each exclosure is 8 ha in size, and has had minimal human influence in the past eighty years. Species density data were collected 1933-1949, 1992, 2015, and converted to functional groups (perennial bunchgrasses, annual grasses, perennial forbs, annual forbs, and perennial shrubs) for the data analysis.� A repeated measures ANOVA was then used to evaluate plant community change overtime. Climate data (precipitation and temperature), extracted from the PRISM database was used as an explanatory variable. Preliminary results suggest that increased temperatures favored annual grasses and increased precipitation patterns favored perennial grasses.� Long term datasets that evaluate plant community composition relative to climate patterns will increase our understanding of how climate influences secondary succession in sagebrush steppe ecosystems. It can also prove to be of value to land managers in making vegetation management decisions as climate patterns continue to change.