Penniselum ciliare, buffelgrass, has spread rapidly in the Sonoran desert of Southwest AZ and has proved difficult to control with severe impacts on native ecosystems. Targeted removal of satellite populations of invasive species has been shown via modeling to be an effective control. Because buffelgrass dispersal pattern has received little to no attention in literature, I investigated the pattern of buffelgrass dispersal along Highway 85 in the Barry M. Goldwater Range. Density of buffelgrass was collected for all buffelgrass 6 meters from the west side of the aforementioned highway. A Ripley's K analysis, conducted in ArcGIS, showed that buffelgrass dispersal is clustered depending on the scale of investigation. Further research should explore buffelgrass dispersal patterns at larger scales and the effectiveness of land management techniques on buffelgrass that utilize strategies of targeted removal of clusters.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.