Monitoring of greater sage-grouse habitats and populations /

Connelly, John W.; Reese, Kerry P.; Schroeder, Michael A.

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.153828

Cited by 110 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Survey locations on burned areas also represented a subset of locations surveyed for a separate study , which describes methodologies for sampling point selection. Although our methods allowed us to detect plovers and passerines, they were not well designed to detect greater sage-grouse, which are better assessed through counts at leks, brood counts, winter flight surveys, or other techniques (Connelly et al 2003). We surveyed the avian community at each point once in each year between late May and late June.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance shapes avian communities on a grassland–sagebrush ecotone

Duchardt

Porensky²,

Augustine³

et al. 2018

Ecosphere

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Ecotones, or transitional zones between ecosystems, are often hotspots for biodiversity and targets for conservation. Where the Great Plains meet the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) steppe, an opportunity exists to conserve habitat for the two most imperiled avian guilds in North America, grassland and shrubsteppe birds. This ecotone creates a unique challenge with respect to the management of disturbance processes, such as fire and grazing, because grassland and sagebrush-shrubland birds respond quite dissimilarly to disturbance. To address this management challenge and maximize conservation opportunities, we examined the responses of grassland and sagebrush bird communities to disturbance at a grasslandsagebrush ecotone in northeast Wyoming, USA. Specifically, we surveyed bird communities on active black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) colonies and burned areas, as well as on paired undisturbed points in 2016 and 2017. Bird community structure varied in response to both the presence and type of disturbance. Although alpha diversity of avian species was highest on undisturbed sites and burned areas, only prairie dog colonies provided breeding habitat for the imperiled shortgrass-obligate mountain plover (Charadrius montanus), and species turnover (beta diversity) was greatest between on-colony and off-colony points. Furthermore, bird communities were shaped by both disturbance-dependent (e.g., disturbance age) and disturbance-independent (e.g., topography and soils) landscape features. Managers must balance the benefits of high species diversity in undisturbed sagebrush with habitat requirements of other imperiled species like the mountain plover. This may entail prioritizing the amount and distribution of disturbances in relation to population goals for species of conservation concern while simultaneously maintaining a mosaic of all three patch types in this landscape.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance shapes avian communities on a grassland–sagebrush ecotone

Duchardt

Porensky²,

Augustine³

et al. 2018

Ecosphere

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“…Therefore, methods that are rapid and easily replicated, such as Daubenmire quadrats and line-point intercept, have been used to quantify vegetation, with the caveat that these methods require large sample sizes. [2][3][4] Thacker et al 1 To address this question, we analyzed data from three big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) sites in northeastern Montana in the United States. At each site, we established three 10 × 10 m plots, and within each plot, we randomly placed 30 Daubenmire quadrats to characterize the vegetation, for a total of 90 quadrats per site.…”

Section: Methods Used For Greater Sage-grouse Habitat Quality Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This comparison is especially timely in light of the widespread concern about degradation and loss of greater sage-grouse habitat, which has resulted in greater sage-grouse population declines. 2 As a result, the E greater sage-grouse is currently being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing on the Endangered Species Act, and thus assessing the validity of habitat assessment methods has become even more important.…”

Section: On the Groundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Daubenmire Versus Line-Point Intercept: A Response to Thacker et al. (2015)

et al. 2015

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On the Ground• Thacker et al. compared two common techniques for assessing greater sage-grouse habitat: Daubenmire quadrats and line-point intercept sampling. • Sampling only 16 Daubenmire quadrats may not have been adequate to support Thacker et al.'s assertion that line-point sampling yields higher cover values and that the two methods are not comparable. • Using data from sagebrush ecosystems in Montana, we show that mean percent cover changes depending on the number of Daubenmire quadrats sampled and that 16 Daubenmire quadrats may not be sufficient to accurately characterize sagebrush vegetation. • Assessing the appropriate sampling effort for the method and study is a crucial part of designing sampling protocols and has implications for greater sage-grouse management and conservation.

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“…Prior to analysis, we removed counts that were conducted outside of the conventional time of day and season for conducting counts (Connelly et al 2003(Connelly et al , 2004. For our statewide model, we used 13 years of lek count data from the state of Montana's lek database.…”

Section: Count and Vital Rate Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

A generalized integrated population model to estimate greater sage‐grouse population dynamics

McCaffery

Lukacs

2016

Ecosphere

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Citation: McCaffery, R., and P. M. Lukacs. 2016. A generalized integrated population model to estimate greater sagegrouse population dynamics. Ecosphere 7(11):Abstract. For species of conservation concern, assessing population dynamics consistently across different populations is of paramount importance to effective conservation and restoration planning. This effort presents a challenge for wide-ranging species with considerable variation in both abundance and demographic rates. Raw counts of individuals are typically used to assess population trends at broad scales, but the demographic rates that explain changes in population size can only feasibly be measured at local scales. We developed a generalized integrated population model, which combines the strengths of these two data types, for the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). We used N-mixture models to estimate annual abundance from counts of males at breeding leks and constructed a two-sex, demographic matrix model using published vital rate estimates for male and female sage-grouse from across their range. We applied the model to 13 years of statewide lek counts for Montana, USA. Then, we applied the model to local, annually varying vital rate estimates and lek count data from a population in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. We demonstrate potential for this modeling approach to improve our understanding of sage-grouse population dynamics in a consistent and robust framework, especially as data quality and quantity increases. We use our results to highlight the need for better data on sex and age ratios, female population size, and the proportion of active leks being monitored each year. While our model was focused on the greater sage-grouse, this approach could be applied to a variety of sensitive species to compare population dynamics across a species' range.

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Monitoring of greater sage-grouse habitats and populations /

Cited by 110 publications

References 44 publications

Disturbance shapes avian communities on a grassland–sagebrush ecotone

Disturbance shapes avian communities on a grassland–sagebrush ecotone

Daubenmire Versus Line-Point Intercept: A Response to Thacker et al. (2015)

A generalized integrated population model to estimate greater sage‐grouse population dynamics

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