Rangeland Ecology & Management

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DEVELOPING A RANGELAND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES DATABASE IN SAGE-GROUSE HABITAT
Author
Swanson, Sherman R.
Shane, Ryan
Schultz, Brad
Orr, Rick
McGowan, Kelly
Svejcar, Tony
Boyd, Chad S.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2015
Body

The Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a sagebrush-obligate bird currently being reviewed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for protected status under the Endangered Species Act. A listing could have broad impacts on management and land use. Potentially-affected parties lack science-based best management practices to implement in sagebrush ecosystems. The Natural Resource Conservation Service awarded a Conservation Innovation Grant to The Nature Conservancy and the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center to develop new tools for land managers to more effectively and efficiently manage and restore sagebrush steppe habitat in the Great Basin. Although much research has been conducted within these systems, plant community response to treatments are dependent on a complex combination of factors including soils, microclimates, invasive species, fire regimes, current habitat state, historical impacts, and more. We were interested in summarizing existing literature about the effectiveness and benefits of key management practices for sage-steppe ecosystems and sage-grouse habitat. As a result of this effort we developed a relational database of rangeland management practices research conducted in the western sagebrush steppe. We are not aware of a similar effort and the value of this database lies in its ability to produce a compiled literature review based on multiple search criteria including initial ecological site condition, plant species, applied treatment and study results. Creating a searchable database with the highly variable manuscript structure common to research presents major challenges, which we will outline in the presentation. The end result is a database that can be used by researchers to inform development of a Manager's Best Practices Guide for sagebrush steppe and sage-grouse habitat and identify knowledge gaps of sagebrush steppe ecosystem management for further research.

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