Proposed work will monitor for five years vegetation, fuels, wildlife, insects, and weather at 10 SageSTEP sites, all of which have been treated to reduce either juniper encroachment (woodland sites) or cheatgrass invasion (sagebrush/cheatgrass sites). Each of the six woodland sites contains an untreated control plot, a ‘cut’ plot where all trees were felled and left on site, and a prescribed burn plot, where fire was used to kill all trees – management objective of the treatments was to reduce tree dominance. Each of the four sagebrush/cheatgrass sites contains an untreated control plot, a mowed plot, a prescribed burn plot, and an herbicide plot, where each treatment was designed to remove 50% of the sagebrush overstory – management [...]
Summary
Proposed work will monitor for five years vegetation, fuels, wildlife, insects, and weather at 10 SageSTEP sites, all of which have been treated to reduce either juniper encroachment (woodland sites) or cheatgrass invasion (sagebrush/cheatgrass sites). Each of the six woodland sites contains an untreated control plot, a ‘cut’ plot where all trees were felled and left on site, and a prescribed burn plot, where fire was used to kill all trees – management objective of the treatments was to reduce tree dominance. Each of the four sagebrush/cheatgrass sites contains an untreated control plot, a mowed plot, a prescribed burn plot, and an herbicide plot, where each treatment was designed to remove 50% of the sagebrush overstory – management objective of the treatments was to stimulate understory grass and forb response. Continued monitoring of treatment response over the long term will lead to a better understanding of the extent to which managers can manipulate vegetation, fuels, and wildlife habitat in the context of climate change.
