Herbaceous production lost to tree encroachment in United States rangelands

Morford, Scott L.; Bw, Allred; Mo, Jones; Jd, Maestas; De, Naugle

doi:10.1101/2021.04.02.438282

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…One potential consequence of the predicted decrease in burnt area, fire size and fire intensity in the tropics is woody encroachment, which impacts biodiversity, the carbon cycle, and land-atmosphere interactions and has consequences for local economies, livestock production, tourism, and pastoralism. High-intensity fires have been used to limit woody encroachment, but with limited evidence of success (50)(51). Integrated fire management strategies that include local knowledge and communities are likely to provide the greatest resilience (52)(53)(54)(55).…”

Section: Key Causes Of Fire Regime Change Under High Mitigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global wildfires on a changing planet

Haas,

Prentice,

Harrison

2024

Preprint

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The distribution of wildfires on Earth will change as future climates, land-use, and vegetation change. We use global empirical models of burnt area, fire size and fire intensity to explore alternative trajectories of wildfires in a changing world. Even with ambitious climate-change mitigation, we find a change in wildfire patterns by the end of the 21st century with generally reduced burning in tropical regions but larger and more intense wildfires in extra-tropical regions. With low mitigation, burnt area increases greatly across all vegetation types – overwhelming the declining trend that currently dominates the global signal. These findings suggest that even with high climate-change mitigation, current fire-suppression policies will no longer be effective in much of the world. A move towards integrated fire management, led by regional stakeholders, will be inescapable. Moreover, mitigation scenarios that rely on expanding forest area will be unrealistic unless they are designed with wildfire risks in mind.

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Section: Key Causes Of Fire Regime Change Under High Mitigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global wildfires on a changing planet

Haas,

Prentice,

Harrison

2024

Preprint

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“…Although not as severely encroached as the Southern Great Plains, the Central Great Plains, USA is also experiencing regime shifts from grass-dominated to woodland states, as a result of fire suppression and tree plantings (Donovan et al 2018;Morford et al 2021). This is largely driven by a single species, Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar), which, akin to Juniperus ashei, is a non-resprouting, fire sensitive species.…”

Section: Central Great Plainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-intensity fire experiments to manage shrub encroachment: lessons learned in South Africa and the United States

Scholtz

Donovan

Strydom

et al. 2022

African Journal of Range & Forage Science

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Human alteration of fire regimes is a hallmark of the Anthropocene; yet few studies have fully explored the implications of utilizing high-intensity fires in grasslands and savannas to manage shrub encroachment. Decades of fire research in South Africa inspired a unique convergence of high-intensity fire experiments in the USA. In the Great Plains of North America, high-intensity fire trials were designed to remove traditional investigator constraints that minimised variability in fire intensity and to explore woody mortality thresholds across a broader suite of experimental conditions. At the same time, studies in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, similarly investigated high-intensity fires to examine previously unstudied relationships between high-intensity fires and woody encroachment. These scientific pursuits have contributed to theoretical advances in our understanding of firevegetation dynamics. In this paper, we synthesise these high-intensity fire experiments, the empirical evidence emerging from them and their importance for managing grassland and savanna ecosystems, and the lessons learned and challenges ahead to maintaining critical ranges of variation in fire regimes during the Anthropocene.

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“…In North America, woody encroachment is occurring in the deserts and rangelands of the west, the savannas of the south, and the grasslands of the Great Plains region (Ratajczak et al, 2012 ; Van Auken, 2000 ). Tree cover in rangelands of the western United States has increased by as much as 50% in the last 30 years, resulting in ~$5 billion in lost revenue (Morford et al, 2022 ). Encroachment in the Great Plains region of the United States is particularly concerning, with invading woody shrubs (e.g., Cornus drummondii ) and trees (e.g., Juniperus virginiana ) replacing grassland plant communities at a rate of up to 1.7% per year (Barger et al, 2011 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant–soil feedback from eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) inhibits the growth of grasses in encroaching range

Bennion

Ward

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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The encroachment of woody plants into grasslands is an ongoing global problem that is largely attributed to anthropogenic factors such as climate change and land management practices. Determining the mechanisms that drive successful encroachment is a critical step towards planning restoration and long-term management strategies.Feedbacks between soil and aboveground communities can have a large influence on the fitness of plants and must be considered as potentially important drivers for woody encroachment. We conducted a plant-soil feedback experiment in a greenhouse between eastern redcedar Juniperus virginiana and four common North American prairie grass species. We assessed how soils that had been occupied by redcedar, a pervasive woody encroacher in the Great Plains of North America, affected the growth of Andropogon gerardi, Schizachyrium scoparium, Bromus inermis, and Pascopyrum smithii over time. We evaluated the effect of redcedar on grass performance by comparing the height and biomass of individuals that were grown in live or sterilized conspecific or redcedar soil. We found redcedar created a negative plant-soil feedback that limited the growth of the cool season grasses B. inermis and P. smithii, reducing their overall biomass by >60%. These effects were found in both live and sterilized redcedar soils. In live soils, some growth suppression can be attributed to the negative effects of soil microbes. The limitation of grass growth in sterile soils indicates redcedar may exude an allelochemical into the soil that limits grass growth. Our results demonstrate that plant-soil feedback created by redcedar inhibits the growth of certain grass species. By creating a plant-plant interaction that negatively affects competitors, redcedars increase the probability of seedling survival until they can grow to overtop their neighbors. These results indicate plant-soil feedback is a mechanism of native woody plant encroachment which could be important in many systems yet is understudied.

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Herbaceous production lost to tree encroachment in United States rangelands

Cited by 9 publications

References 70 publications

Global wildfires on a changing planet

Global wildfires on a changing planet

High-intensity fire experiments to manage shrub encroachment: lessons learned in South Africa and the United States

Plant–soil feedback from eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) inhibits the growth of grasses in encroaching range

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