Rangeland Ecology & Management

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PATCH-BURN GRAZING PROMOTES POLLINATOR DIVERSITY THROUGH SPATIALLY EXPLICIT HABITAT HETEROGENEITY
Author
Wiggam, Shelly
Zolnerowich, Gregory
McCornack, Brian
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2015
Body

Rangelands in North America are managed primarily for livestock production, yet they have enormous potential to conserve native biodiversity while maintaining livestock productivity. Although pollinators are critical to the maintenance of healthy rangelands, livestock production, ecosystem services, economies, and human health, they are a group of wildlife of greatest conservation concern that would benefit directly from changes in current rangeland management practices. Patch-burn grazing is a rangeland management practice that has been shown to maintain cattle production metrics and profitability while increasing diversity in wildlife habitat such as vegetative structure and plant species composition. Certain invertebrate taxonomic groups have been shown to have higher diversity in patch-burn grazing pastures, but pollinator community responses have not been studied in detail. This study examines the response of native pollinator species richness and abundance in cattle pastures throughout the Flint Hills ecoregion to the traditional rangeland management practice of annually burning and grazing as compared to patch-burn grazing. Initial results indicate a twofold increase in relative pollinator abundance in patch-burn grazing pastures as compared to annually burned and grazed pastures, which is driven by increases in both native bee and butterfly abundance (ps <0.05). Additionally, there is a threefold increase in native bee species richness in patch-burn grazing pastures, as well as a twofold increase in butterfly species richness (ps <0.05). Three grass skippers of greatest conservation concern are only found in patch-burn grazing pastures, and regal fritillary abundance is substantially higher in patch-burn grazing pastures. Lastly, patch-burn grazing has more spatially explicit patches of habitat heterogeneity as measured by vegetative structure and plant species composition (ps <0.05). These findings indicate that patch-burn grazing has significant potential to conserve and restore one of North America's most endangered taxonomic groups of wildlife, native grassland pollinators, with one it's most dominant land-use enterprises, cattle grazing.  

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Sacramento, CA