Eighty-one monitoring plots within the Minidoka National Wildlife refuge on the Snake River Plain in south-central Idaho were surveyed in July-August from 2020 to 2023 to evaluate the effects of herbicides on the vegetation-community across areas that varied in both burn history and background cheatgrass abundance. Surveys consisted of line-point intercept measurements along two 6m or 50m transects with 100 points of observation per line. In spring of 2023 "escaped" cheatgrass individuals were counted in each 6x6m herbicide-treated plot.

Selective herbicide application is a common restoration strategy to control exotic invaders that interfere with native plant recovery after wildfire. Whether spraying with preemergent or bioherbicides releases native plants from competition with exotics (“spray-and-release” strategy) and can make communities resistant to re-invasion by exotic annual grasses (e.g., cheatgrass, medusahead), without risks to non-target native plants or secondary invasion, is a major question for land managers of semiarid plant communities. We applied chemical herbicides (imazapic, rimsulfuron) and weed-suppressive bacteria (Pseudomonas fluorescens strains MB906 and D7) to three different SW Idaho sagebrush-steppe communities after fire. We measured plant cover prior to burning and for four years after treatments.

Selective herbicide application is a common restoration strategy to control exotic invaders that interfere with native plant recovery after wildfire. Whether spraying with preemergent or bioherbicides releases native plants from competition with exotics (“spray-and-release” strategy) and can make communities resistant to re-invasion by exotic annual grasses (e.g., cheatgrass, medusahead), without risks to non-target native plants or secondary invasion, is a major question for land managers of semiarid plant communities. We applied chemical herbicides (imazapic, rimsulfuron) and weed-suppressive bacteria (Pseudomonas fluorescens strains MB906 and D7) to three different SW Idaho sagebrush-steppe communities after fire. We measured plant cover prior to burning and for four years after treatments.

The exotic grass-fire cycle is degrading semiarid rangelands, such as the vast areas of shrub-steppe in North America now invaded by fire-promoting cheatgrass. Chemical- or bio-herbicides are sprayed onto soils to inhibit the invaders, but information on chemical- or bio-herbicide effects on plant communities is limited. We asked how the plant community responded to the bioherbicide Pseudomonas fluorescens strain ACK55 (Battalion Pro®) in comparison to the separate and combined effects of the most conventional pre-emergent chemical herbicide, imazapic (Plateau®), in two cheatgrass-invaded sagebrush-steppe sites. Plant community responses are compared with soil microbial community responses in the Larger Work, and soil microbial data are available in GenBank. Plant community responses are compared with soil microbial community responses in the Larger Work, and soil microbial sequence data were deposited to the NCBI Short Read Archive (BioProject PRJNA1254875).

Sixty-eight monitoring plots within the Browns Park National Wildlife refuge in Northwest Colorado were surveyed in the Summer of 2007 and 2021 for vegetation-community changes after grazing cessation in 1986. Surveys consisted of line-point intercept measurements at 0.5m intervals along three 15-m transects arranged in a spoke around plot center at each plot location.

Sixty-eight monitoring plots within the Browns Park National Wildlife refuge in Northwest Colorado were surveyed in the Summer of 2007 and 2021 for vegetation-community changes after grazing cessation in 1986. Surveys consisted of line-point intercept measurements at 0.5m intervals along three 15-m transects arranged in a spoke around plot center at each plot location.

Data includes functional group cover of exotic annual grasses, shallow rooted perennial grasses, and cover, basal diameter, height, and density of deep-rooted perennial grasses within the first five years after the 2015 Soda wildfire across post-fire drill-seeding treatments.

Data includes functional group cover of exotic annual grasses, shallow rooted perennial grasses, and cover, basal diameter, height, and density of deep-rooted perennial grasses within the first five years after the 2015 Soda wildfire across post-fire drill-seeding treatments.

Quantifying Western U.S. shrublands as a series of fractional components with remote sensing provides a new way to understand these changing ecosystems. The USGS NLCD team in collaboration with the BLM has produced the most comprehensive remote sensing-based quantification of Western U.S. shrublands to date. Nine shrubland ecosystem components, including percent shrub, sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), big sagebrush, herbaceous, annual herbaceous, litter, and bare ground cover, along with sagebrush and shrub heights, were quantified at 30-m resolution by mapping region. Each region required extensive ground measurement for model training and validation, two scales of remote sensing data from commercial high-resolution satellites and Landsat 8, and regression tree modeling to create component predictions. In the mapped portion (1,946,100 km²) of the total study area (2,557,556 km²), bare ground averaged 46.8%, shrub 14.4%, sagebrush 4.4%, big sagebrush 3.1%, herbaceous 22.8%, annual herbaceous 4.3% and litter 15.6%. Shrub height averaged 39.8 cm and sagebrush height 10.5 cm. Component accuracies using independent validation averaged R² values of 0.46, RMSE of 10.37 and nRMSE of 0.12, and cross validation averaged R² values of 0.72, RMSE of 5.09 and nRMSE of 0.062. Component composition strongly diverges by level III ecoregions, where 13 of 22 ecoregions are bare ground dominant, 8 are herbaceous dominant, and one is shrub dominant. Sagebrush physically covers 86,219 km², or 4.4%, of our study area, but it is present in 835,507 km², or 42.9%, of the non-masked area of our study area, underscoring its widespread distribution. In this version, we have applied a more aggressive masking of tree canopy cover was applied to each rangeland component. Specifically, we have lowered the tree canopy cover threshold for exclusion from 40 to 25%. For pixels with 1-25% tree canopy cover we ensured that our primary components (shrub, herbaceous, litter, and bare ground) cover summed to 100% when added with the tree canopy. And, for the secondary components (sagebrush, big sagebrush, sagebrush height and shrub height) we reconciled to the primary component (shrub), excluding any pinyon-juniper woodlands. For a previous version without these updates applied, see https://doi.org/10.5066/P9LTU2QM. Component products can also be downloaded from www.mrlc.gov.