In recent decades, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations have declined in many areas primarily due to habitat loss. This loss can be attributed in part to the expansion of juniper (Juniperus occidentalis Hook.) into sagebrush (Artemisia spp. L.) and aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) plant communities, reducing shrub and understory vegetation, respectively. This diminishes forage availability which negatively impacts mule deer as malnutrition is a leading cause of adult mortality. Research has evaluated how mule deer respond to juniper expansion in sagebrush communities, but few studies have examined their response to expansion into aspen communities. Previous studies also demonstrated that, in addition to changes in vegetation cover, mule deer populations can be impacted by interactions with other ungulates and human development. We evaluated the relative importance of these factors and juniper for influencing mule deer occupancy in the Steens Mountain area of southeast Oregon, by analyzing data collected from game cameras deployed June–August 2020–2022 in a single-season occupancy model. We expected early to mid-successional juniper woodlands and areas with more aspen vegetation to have higher occupancy rates compared to late-successional or treeless sites. We predicted higher occupancy in areas with more understory vegetation, reduced elk, cattle, and horse presence, and farther from roads. We found that mule deer occupancy was highest in areas with intermediate (∼15–30%) overall tree cover. We also found that greater herbaceous cover (perennial and annual) and shrub cover (sagebrush and non-sagebrush) was associated with higher occupancy rates. Additionally, mule deer occupancy was higher in areas with less elk presence and more cattle presence. These findings highlight the importance of maintaining intermediate tree cover and abundant understory vegetation to support mule deer populations. Managers can use these insights to prioritize and balance juniper treatments that benefit mule deer as well as other sagebrush-obligate species.

We used a network of motion-sensitive cameras and weekly transect surveys during a replicated cattle grazing experiment to assess the influence of dormant season grazing, spring-summer rotational grazing, and grazing exclusion on the activity of rodent, meso-mammalian, lagomorph and reptilian species in southeast Oregon, USA, from 2018-2021. Activity of chipmunks ( Neotamias spp.) and mice (subfamily Neotominae ), was lower in moderate intensity rotationally grazed pastures compared to nongrazed pastures. When considering differences with respect to rotation (spring or summer) or cattle presence, we found evidence for reduced activity of most rodents (including chipmunks, ground squirrels [ Urocitellus spp.], kangaroo rats [family Heteromyidae ], and mice), with the largest reductions during summer grazing. We did not observe a direct effect of grazing on meso-predators, including American badgers ( Taxidea taxus ), and coyotes ( Canis latrans ). Perennial forb cover was associated with increased ground squirrel activity and coyote and badger occupancy, suggesting indirect effects stemming from vegetation food resources. Our results suggest grazing influences the activity and occupancy of many species within the sagebrush ecosystem food web, which has implications for several species of management concern. As the sagebrush ecosystem continues to shrink, managers should consider the influences of grazing management on the dynamics of species interactions, including predator-prey relationships. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Livestock grazing is the primary land use across sagebrush ecosystems in the western US and its effects have been subject to extensive research and debate. Historical overgrazing, annual grass invasion and associated increase in fire frequency, conifer encroachment, climate change, and human modification have resulted in the loss or degradation of 86% of sagebrush ecosystems, leading to intensified interest in how remaining intact rangelands are managed. Unlike historical, continuous grazing, contemporary practices generally incorporate planned periods of rest and recovery from grazing during the growing season. Dormant season grazing is one such practice that shows promise for improving degraded rangelands and reducing wildfire risk. However, no studies have compared moderate intensity dormant season grazing to contemporary spring-summer grazing and grazing exclusion in sagebrush rangelands dominated by perennial bunchgrasses. We evaluated the effects of contem porary spring-summer grazing, dormant season grazing, and grazing exclusion on plant community characteristics in a Wyoming big sagebrush ecosystem. We expected the effects of dormant season grazing to be comparable to grazing exclusion. Deep-rooted perennial bunchgrass cover and density and shallow-rooted perennial bunchgrass cover in grazed areas did not differ from grazing exclusion (control) sites, and we found no support that grazing altered the deep-rooted perennial bunchgrass community through time. Dormant season grazing reduced native annual forb and sagebrush cover, but increased density of the shallow-rooted perennial bunchgrass. Our results suggest contemporary spring-summer or dormant season grazing are unlikely to lead to a decline in desirable perennial bunchgrasses. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

The sagebrush biome is rapidly deteriorating largely due to the ecosystem threats of conifer expansion, more frequent and larger wildfires, and proliferation of invasive annual grasses. Reversing the impacts of these threats is a formidable challenge. The Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) emphasized that limited conservation resources should first be used to maintain Core Sagebrush Areas (CSA), and then to grow such areas where possible. The SCD heightens the ecological importance of maintaining and strategically growing CSAs. However, the fact that these areas have been identified does not mean that conservation is immediately possible or will be effective. Strategic conservation in the sagebrush biome does not only involve working in ecologically important areas; it is an approach that must explicitly acknowledge the social and administrative conditions in which individuals and organizations are making decisions. We accordingly propose that strategic, durable work can only occur in geographies of "conservation readiness," that is, where ecological importance, social capacity, and conducive administrative conditions intersect. We offer a framework for assessing conservation readiness that functions as both an inventory and diagnostic tool, highlighting current assets while shining a light on needs and the types of activities that will create or sustain conservation readiness. We demonstrate the utility of the Conservation Readiness Framework for identifying the different roles and activities that must occur at local, mid, and regional levels to nurture conservation readiness over time. In practice, this approach contrasts with management driven solely by ecological importance and illustrates that effective conservation must also involve targeted efforts that curate both social and administrative conditions. (c) 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Restoration of degraded drylands is critically needed to return lost ecosystem goods and services. Restoration practitioners often focus on restoring the historic native plant community to promote biodiversity and reduce the threat of invasion. However, success with native plants in drylands is often low, especially with altered climatic and disturbance regimes. Instead, we suggest that the focus should be on restoring ecosystem goods and services that are important to society. In other words, restoration goals should be the starting point for the restoration planning process. This may include using introduced (non-native) plants where they are likely to establish and meet ecosystem objectives determined important for society and pose minimal risk of further land degradation, but native plants are likely to fail. However, native plants should be used where they can be successful. We propose a decision tree to assist in determining if native, introduced, or mixes of native and introduced plant species should be used in restoration efforts. Restoration of degraded drylands at scales that will offset and reverse the current rates of degradation may require the use of both native and introduced plants. We do not make these arguments lightly, and are aware of the numerous challenges in the careful and successful use of introduced species in service of supporting ecosystems services and function without causing further, unintended degradation. However, we believe that the potential benefits are greater than the risk if done correctly and judiciously. We do not underestimate the complexity involved in following through with the decision tree we propose, but present it as a framework to guide this difficult work.

Invasive annual grasses have degraded tens of millions of hectares of the sagebrush ecosystem of western North America. Restoration of perennial vegetation in annual grass−invaded rangelands is a management priority to decrease fire risk, increase livestock forage quality, and improve wildlife habitat. Annual grasses are traditionally controlled in the fall with preemergent herbicides, such as imazapic, and treated areas are often seeded with perennial bunchgrasses 1 yr later to avoid nontarget herbicide damage to revegetation species. However, there is a limited window of time in the fall to accomplish annual grass control treatments. Spring-applied control treatments may be another option compared with only fall control treatments, but they have received little attention. We imposed spring-applied annual grass control treatments followed by fall seeding of a perennial bunchgrasses and then measured vegetation response for the next 3 yr in cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae)−invaded communities. Spring treatments that included imazapic application (at a low rate), followed by fall seeding of perennial bunchgrasses, successfully controlled annual grasses and substantially increased perennial bunchgrass cover and density. Spring burning and glyphosate herbicide application, without imazapic, were not successful in promoting substantial increases in perennial bunchgrass cover. Spring burning before imazapic application was the most successful treatment for rehabilitation seeding. By the third yr after seeding, perennial bunchgrass cover was 17% in the spring burn−imazapic treatment, greater than what is generally found in intact Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis)-bunchgrass communities in this region. The results of this study provide strong evidence that spring-applied control treatments including imazapic can be part of successful revegetation efforts, thereby decreasing some of the logistical challenges associated with revegetation of annual grass−invaded sagebrush rangelands.

•After years of overgrazing in the late 1800s and early 1900s with little to no management, range management efforts shifted to focus on eradication of sagebrush to promote forage production from World War II to the 1970s.•From the 1970s to present the paradigm shifted to an emphasis on leaving sagebrush intact for the benefit of sagebrush-obligate wildlife.•However, neither management paradigm has yielded an ideal outcome with approximately 30% of the Great Basin being identified as “poor condition shrubland,” with >10% shrub cover and a high ratio of annual to perennial herbaceous cover.•A combination of new and old restoration methods is needed to restore degraded sagebrush communities to rejuvenate the declining perennial herbaceous understories and increase biotic resiliency of the shrub community.

•Containing cattle with a virtual fence (VF) has gained considerable attention. VF technology uses auditory and electric stimuli to contain or exclude cattle from predetermined areas, which has raised concerns over cattle welfare.•We evaluated blood markers associated with stress and inflammatory response when naive cattle were fitted with VF collars.•We detected no major changes in blood markers. Cattle were able to quickly identify and adapt to VF boundaries and over time reduce the number of stimuli.•Our results indicate VF technology can contain cattle within a pre-established boundary and does not negatively impact cattle welfare.

Research continually adds to our understanding of the ecological factors and biophysical processes driving frequent, large-scale fires on Great Basin rangelands in the western United States. Yet even with advances in forecasting rangeland fire probabilities and likely ecological outcomes of fire, it remains difficult for individuals, communities, or organizations to coordinate their actions across jurisdictions and at an ecologically relevant scale to address collective wildfire risk. In this forum, we discuss current institutional arrangements that perpetuate scale mismatches in this system; that is, institutional objectives, authorities, and capacities that limit coordinated actions to mitigate collective wildfire risk. We make a case for fireshed-scale coordination via rangeland Fireshed Councils, proposed rangeland and fire planning and management units that have both biophysical and social relevance to individuals and organizations engaged in fire risk mitigation. A rangeland Fireshed Council offers a venue for diverse group members to mix and match their respective rules and tools to navigate institutional barriers and capacity challenges in new ways. Operating in a collective arrangement at this scale aims to ensure that an individual's or entity's activities transcend traditional modes of planning (i.e., parcel-scale), complement concurrent management activities, and translate to fire-resilient landscapes and human communities. Rangeland Fireshed Councils will require resources and support from high governance levels for sustainability and legitimacy and relative autonomy to determine how best to support local needs.

climate variability impacts forage yield in semiarid rangelands, but it also affects the timing of peak yields. Knowledge of peak standing crop or yield dates would be useful when planning fieldwork for various research or management activities and for developing more accurate models linking herbage production to climatic variables. In this study, herbaceous yield was measured every 2 weeks (April-August) over an 8-year period in a Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis) community in southeastern Oregon. Date of peak yield (Julian day) was calcu-lated for morphological groups (tall perennial bunchgrasses, perennial forbs, annual forbs), Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda J. Pressl), and total herbaceous yield. Linear and multiple regression analyses were used to correlate date of peak yield of herbaceous morphological groups with spring precipitation, reference evapotranspiration (RET), and air tem-perature. Peak yield dates for the herbaceous response variables were strongly correlated to annual climatic variation, commonly a combination of early growing season precipitation (March to 16 May) and March through May RET. Depend-ing on morphological group, peak yield date varied by 3 to 7 weeks during the growing season. The best regression coefficients for peak yield date of perennial bunchgrasses, perennial forbs, Sandberg bluegrass, annual forbs, and total herbaceous vegetation alone or with various combinations of precipitation, temperature, and RET were 0.97, 0.82, 0.86, 0.90, and 0.98, respectively. For planning fieldwork, estimates of peak yield date can be used to accurately sample for yields of herbaceous morphological groups and community production potentials.

The invasive annual grass, medusahead, infests rangelands throughout the West, from the Columbia Plateau to the California Annual Grasslands and the Great Basin. Dominating secondary succession in the sagebrush steppe, medusahead can degrade the habitat of threatened species such as the greater sage-grouse. This research explores the potential of dormant season grazing as an applied management strategy to reduce the negative impacts of medusahead while promoting recovery of perennial vegetation at the landscape scale. In particular, it assessed grazing with four treatments from 2018 to 2020: traditional grazing (May-October), dormant season grazing (October-February), traditional + dormant season grazing (May-February), and no grazing. After 2 yr of grazing treatments, biomass, density, cover, and fuel continuity did not differ between treatments (P > 0.05). However, biomass measurements were significantly different between years, which is likely due to greater than normal precipitation in 2019 and 2020. Between 2018 and 2019, annual grass biomass increased by 81% (666-1 212 kg ha(-1)) and perennial grass biomass increased by 165% (118-313 kg ha(-1)). Litter biomass decreased by approximately 15% in every year since 2018 (2 374, 2 012, and 1 678 kg ha(-1) in 2018-2020). There were not significant differences in cover or density of annual and perennial grasses between treatments and years. Our results indicate that 2 yr may not be adequate time for dormant season grazing treatments to be effective in reducing the abundance of medusahead and that after 2 yr of treatments, dormant season grazing does not have a detrimental effect on perennial vegetation. (c) 2023 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management.

Rangeland wildfire is a wicked problem that cuts across a mosaic of public and private rangelands in the western United States and countless countries worldwide. Fine fuel accumulation in these ecosystems contributes to large-scale wildfires and undermines plant communities’ resistance to invasive annual grasses and resilience to disturbances such as fire. Yet it can be difficult to implement fuels management practices, such as grazing, in socially and politically complex contexts such as federally managed rangelands in the United States. In this Research-Partnership Highlight, we argue that private-public partners in such settings must be strategic in their selection of tasks to generate “small wins” in order to build the trust, competency, and legitimacy needed to advance an approach for landscape-scale fine fuels management. We highlight a fine fuels reduction partnership consisting of public and private entities in southeastern Oregon that established a research and education project and applied dormant season grazing on three pastures within the Vale District Bureau of Land Management. We describe the impetus for the partnership, antecedents, strategic tactics, and ongoing learning and reflection used to revise processes. In this example, implementing dormant season grazing as a research and education project allowed the partners to assess the efficaciousness of the treatment, as well as the operational logistics and administrative competencies necessary to apply the treatment to manage fine fuels at broader scales. Because dormant season grazing may, in some instances, conflict with established practices and norms, small-scale projects such as this allow partners to refine understandings of the social and administrative conditions that make implementation possible. Generating small wins through projects such as this is a critical precursor for partnerships seeking to take on larger, more complex endeavors that involve increasing ecological, economic, and social uncertainty.

•Management interventions for addressing invading annual grasses and encroaching conifers and their effects on fire dynamics in the sagebrush ecosystem are largely reactive.•Reactive management limits tools for promoting long-term ecosystem resilience on a fire-prone landscape.•We propose an integrated fire management approach in which all management activities before, during, and after wildfire are synergistic and improve long-term ecosystem response to fire.•Harney County Wildfire Collaborative is adapting the Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) framework to improve fire outcomes and promote values at risk in the Stinkingwater Mountains pilot project area.•The PODs framework serves to promote a broader geographic strategy for addressing the underlying causes of frequent and severe wildfires in the sagebrush ecosystem.

•Rangeland resilience is influenced by a variety of ecosystem properties that fall into two broad categories, 1) abiotic and 2) biotic.•Although important to consider in land management planning, abiotic properties cannot be directly influenced with management. In contrast, biotic properties of the ecosystem can be readily influenced by management.•The formula for robust biotic resilience to wildfire and resistance to invasive annual grasses in the northern Great Basin sagebrush ecosystem is about maintaining and promoting perennial bunchgrasses.•The management system must be resilient if we hope to promote ecosystem resilience in an ever-changing risk, seedling recruitment, and recovery environment. A successful strategy for promoting ecosystem resilience will require securing a resilient management system, and a shift in paradigm from random acts of opportunistic restoration to a sustained, organized, process-based approach for promoting ecosystem resilience.

On public lands grazing allotments in the western US sagebrush steppe, cattle are generally excluded from burned pastures for 2 yr post fire. If only a portion of a pasture burns, the burned area may be fenced, allowing for cattle grazing to resume in the unburned portion. However, traditional wire-based fencing is often not an option due to expense, conflicts with wildlife management objectives, and extensive procedural logistics. We evaluated the use of a “virtual fence” (VF) for excluding cattle from burned areas within small pastures in the sagebrush steppe of southeast Oregon. VF technology (Vence Corporation, San Francisco, CA) uses satellite-controlled collars that direct animal movement within user-defined polygons using auditory and electrical cues. We fall-burned a 0.6-ha area in each of six adjacent 2.1-ha pastures in a Wyoming big sagebrush plant community in 2019. In June 2020, each pasture was stocked with 3 mature dry cows for 14 d. All cows were fitted with VF collars; collars were programed to create a virtual fence around the burned area within three of the pastures (VF treatment), and remaining pastures had electrical and auditory cues turned off (control treatment). Collars recorded animal location every 5 min. Cows in the control treatment initially spent up to 40% of their time within the burned area, and forage utilization of the burned area was nearly 70%. Cows in the VF treatment spent approximately 4% of their time in the burned area on day 1 and were recorded in the burn only incidentally thereafter; forage utilization in the burn was < 3%. Our trial suggests VF technology is effective in controlling rangeland cattle movements and can severely curtail use of burned areas. Additional work is needed to evaluate VF technology in larger rangeland settings.

Livestock grazing occurs worldwide, spanning over 25% of land globally, and effective conservation of biodiversity relies upon understanding the interactions of agricultural management practices and increasingly variable weather associated with climate change. We evaluated precipitation and temperature and the daily nest survival rates of two species of sagebrush-obligate songbirds, Brewer’s sparrow (Spizella breweri) and sagebrush sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis) under dormant season grazing, rotational grazing and a non-grazed control. Precipitation and temperature were quantified as daily time-varying and averages across the breeding season. Both sparrow species in our study were influenced by within-year weather variation, and experienced declines in daily nest survival beyond precipitation thresholds. For sagebrush sparrows, an interaction of precipitation and temperature indicated nest survival was lowest during 5-day time frames with minimal precipitation and high temperatures. While we found moderate grazing lowered perennial grass cover, there was no support for vegetation differences associated with moderate grazing explaining daily nest survival. Our results indicate that variable weather presented a much greater threat to these birds than reductions in herbaceous cover caused by moderate grazing under the studied conditions. Management should focus on conserving extensive tracts of suitable habitat to increase songbird populations and resiliency to increasingly variable and extreme weather conditions.

•The continued expansion of invasive annual grasses is a complex ecosystem management problem requiring a shift in focus from a discrete, single treatment approach to one of adaptive management with sustained investment.•Four case studies shared at the 2020 Invasive Annual Grass workshop provide lessons learned and opportunities to advance future management efforts to inform the direction for new science.•Tackling the complex problem of invasive annual grass management will require an expansion of science-based case studies of real-world management efforts, strong science and management partnerships, and a platform for continuous learning and communication, such as a comprehensive database to document management outcomes along with Open Access journals that allow publishing of negative and null outcomes.•Managers can use existing tools such as the Land Treatment Digital Library, Land Treatment Exploration Tool, and the Rangeland Analysis Platform to understand the efficacy of invasive annual grass treatments under a variety of site and environmental conditions.

Exotic annual grasses invasion across northern Great Basin rangelands has promoted a grass-fire cycle that threatens the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) steppe ecosystem. In this sense, high accumulation rates and persistence of litter from annual species largely increase the amount and continuity of fine fuels. Here, we highlight the potential use and transferability of remote sensing-derived products to estimate litter biomass on sagebrush rangelands in southeastern Oregon, and link fire regime attributes (fire-free period) with litter biomass spatial patterns at the landscape scale. Every June, from 2018 to 2021, we measured litter biomass in 24 field plots (60 m × 60 m). Two remote sensing-derived datasets were used to predict litter biomass measured in the field plots. The first dataset used was the 30-m annual net primary production (NPP) product partitioned into plant functional traits (annual grass, perennial grass, shrub, and tree) from the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP). The second dataset included topographic variables (heat load index -HLI- and site exposure index -SEI-) computed from the USGS 30-m National Elevation Dataset. Through a frequentist model averaging approach (FMA), we determined that the NPP of annual and perennial grasses, as well as HLI and SEI, were important predictors of field-measured litter biomass in 2018, with the model featuring a high overall fit (R2 = 0.61). Model transferability based on extrapolating the FMA predictive relationships from 2018 to the following years provided similar overall fits (R2 ≈ 0.5). The fire-free period had a significant effect on the litter biomass accumulation on rangelands within the study site, with greater litter biomass in areas where the fire-free period was <10 years. Our findings suggest that the proposed remote sensing-derived products could be a key instrument to equip rangeland managers with additional information towards fuel management, fire management, and restoration efforts.

Wildfires are increasingly impacting ecosystem processes and ecological services provided by sagebrush rangelands in the western United States. Mitigating this problem involves actions taken before, during, and after fire. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis on prefire fuel management, including fuel breaks. Cattle grazing can be used as a tool to manage fine fuel loading within fuel breaks; however, spatially focusing grazing impacts inside a linear fuel break is challenging. We evaluated using virtual fencing (VF) technology for concentrating grazing impacts inside a 200-m wide, 3-km long fuel break within a 410-ha pasture in sagebrush steppe. The fuel break was bounded by four 35-m wide virtual fences, each consisting of boundaries for auditory (10-m wide) and electrical cues (25-m wide), and a traditional 5-strand barbed wire perimeter fence delineated the pasture perimeter. In June 2021 we introduced 16 dry cows and 23 cow/calf pairs into the fuel break following a 5-d VF training period; cattle were removed after 30 d. Cows were fitted with VF collars (calves not collared) that use Global Positioning System positioning to contain cattle inside fuel break boundaries and record animal locations at 5-min intervals. End-of-trial forage utilization was 48.5% ± 3.7% and 5.5% ± 0.7% for areas inside and outside of the fuel break, respectively. Daily percentage of cattle locations inside the fuel break was initially > 94% but declined to approximately 75% by the end of the trial. Percentage daily locations of dry cows and cow/calf pairs inside the fuel break was 98.5% ± 0.5% and 80.6% ± 1.1%, respectively (P < 0.001). Our data suggest virtual fencing can be a highly effective method of concentrating grazing to reduce herbaceous fuel biomass within linear fuel breaks. Efficacy of this method could be substantially impacted by use of dry versus cow/calf pairs.