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Cropland conversion is anticipated to continue westward from the Great Plains into the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome – the most intact biome remaining in the conterminous United States. However, relatively little is known about the extent and risk of cropland conversion to sagebrush ecosystems and the landscape scale benefits of easements in averting loss of ecological function. Therefore, our goals were to 1) quantify the cropland area of the sagebrush biome, 2) identify where the highest quality sagebrush rangelands are most at risk to future cropland conversion, and 3) estimate the ecological benefits of conservation easements to adjacent public lands. We found that croplands span 14.4 million ha in the sagebrush...
Categories: Data;
Types: Downloadable,
GeoTIFF,
Map Service,
Raster;
Tags: AGRICULTURAL LANDS,
AGRICULTURAL LANDS,
ANTHROPOGENIC/HUMAN INFLUENCED ECOSYSTEMS,
ANTHROPOGENIC/HUMAN INFLUENCED ECOSYSTEMS,
BIOSPHERE, All tags...
BIOSPHERE,
CROPLAND,
CROPLAND,
Data,
Data.gov USFWS Science Applications,
EARTH SCIENCE,
EARTH SCIENCE,
ECOSYSTEMS,
ECOSYSTEMS,
SA Science Catalog,
Science Keywords,
Science Keywords,
completed,
conservation easements,
conservation easements,
cropland conversion,
cropland conversion,
prioritization,
prioritization,
raster,
risk model,
risk model,
sagebrush,
sagebrush, Fewer tags
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Functional connectivity, quantified using landscape genetics, can inform conservation through the identification of factors linking genetic structure to landscape mechanisms. We used breeding habitat metrics, landscape attributes, and indices of grouse abundance, to compare fit between structural connectivity and genetic differentiation within five long-established Sage-Grouse Management Zones (MZ) I–V using microsatellite genotypes from 6,009 greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) collected across their range. We estimated structural connectivity using a circuit theory-based approach where we built resistance surfaces using thresholds dividing the landscape into “habitat” and “nonhabitat” and nodes were...
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Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) applications are limited by the capacity of land managers to integrate maps of rangeland condition and threats into planning processes for their management area. To increase the integration of spatial data and help managers and planners step down the SCD to local-scale conservation planning, we developed a web application that provides a user-friendly interface.
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