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Lauren Cleeves

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Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Cheatgrass Die-offs in the Great Basin
FY2013Cheatgrass die-offs are unexplained instances of stand failure observed in areas of Nevada and Utah, where cheatgrass fails to grow even though it has been a dominant component of plant communities in the past. The goals of this project are to:1) provide information on the size and extent of historic (1985 - 2012) die-offs in the Winnemucca area using satellite imagery, and 2) determine if die-offs are restoration opportunities by planting and monitoring local and commercially available native grasses in die-off areas.Support is requested to fund monitoring of the restoration project through a second growing season and to develop predictive spatial models of die-off from analysis of satellite imagery and GIS...
The exotic annual grass Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) dominates vast acreages of rangeland in the western USA, leading to increased fire frequency and ecosystem degradation that is often irreversible. Episodic regeneration failure (“die-off”) has been observed in cheatgrass monocultures and can have negative ecosystem consequences, but can also provide an opportunity for restoration of native species and ecological function within the imperiled sagebrush steppe ecosystem. Proximate causes of cheatgrass die-off are uncertain, although several taxa of fungal soil pathogens have been implicated. Die-off occurrence is stochastic and can occur in remote areas. Thus, developing remote sensing indicators that are repeatable...
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