Rangeland Ecology & Management

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National Assessment and Critiques of State-and-Transition Models: The Baby with the Bathwater
Author
Bestelmeyer, Brandon T.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2015-12-01
Body

On the Ground • Ecological site descriptions and state-and-transition models are national-level tools for organizing and delivering information about landscape dynamics and management. • Recent papers criticized state-and-transition models because they overemphasize grazing, are inconsistentlypresented, and do not address climate change. • I argue that the analysis of Twidwell et al. does not support an overemphasis on grazing, that inconsistent presentation is a necessary consequence of early model development efforts and immature science concepts, and that climate change effects should not be addressed in site-level models without evidence. • Improving these important tools requires fair critique, but also the strong commitment of scientists and funders. The Rangelands archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform March 2020

Language
en
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Journal Issue/Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1016/j.rala.2015.03.004
Additional Information
Bestelmeyer, B. T. (2015). National Assessment and Critiques of State-and-Transition Models: The Baby with the Bathwater. Rangelands, 37(3), 125-129.
IISN
0190-0528
OAI Identifier
oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/640087
Journal Volume
37
Journal Number
3
Journal Pages
125-129
Collection
Journal Name
Rangelands
Keywords
ecological site descriptions
regime shifts
grazing
thresholds
climate change
  • Practical, non-technical peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol 1, 1979 up to 3 years from the current year. More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.