Rangeland environments in the Great Basin are undergoing changes associated with invasive species, altered fire regimes, climate shifts and other disturbances. Some changes are expressed as state transitions in vegetation, whereas others are more subtle trends in cover. These changes have important ecological and economic implications and understanding the drivers of change has become an important area of research. We used thousands of historic (1977�1982; Soil Vegetation Inventory Method) and recent (2011�2016; Assessment Inventory and Monitoring) field plot data collected by the Bureau of Land Management to determine the amount of environmental change occurring on rangelands in the Great Basin and assess what factors are having the most influence on these trends. We combined discrete field sampling data with spatially-continuous annual data from Landsat satellite imagery (1984�2016) to map and quantify vegetation and exposed soil changes in grasslands and shrublands. Preliminary results suggest that some areas of the Great Basin are changing more than others and much of this change can be attributed to wildfire. Results also suggest that some areas have remained relatively stable through time. Areas of vegetation stability could be used as reference areas to better evaluate future changes in vegetation and soil.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.