The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP): a test of state-and-transition theory

Abstract

The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) is a comprehensive, integrated, long-term study that evaluates the ecological effects of fire and fire surrogate treatments designed to reduce fuel and to restore sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) communities of the Great Basin and surrounding areas. SageSTEP has several features that make it ideal for testing hypotheses from state-and-transition theory: it is long-term, experimental, multisite, and multivariate, and treatments are applied across condition gradients, allowing for potential identification of biotic thresholds. The project will determine the conditions under which sagebrush steppe ecological communities recover on their own following fuel treatment versus the communities crossing ecological thresholds, which requires expensive active restoration.

Estimating Juniper Cover From National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) Imagery and Evaluating Relationships Between Potential Cover and Environmental Variables

“…At each site, fuel reduction treatment plots (2.5-24 hectares) were established across the range of P-J woodland successional stages McIver et al 2010), with tree canopy cover ranging from , 5% to . 40%.…”

The Role of Critical Zone Observatories in Critical Zone Science

“…Fire frequency and extent are in creasing in the Western United States with changes in climate (Westerling et al, 2006) and vegetation (introduced species such as Bromus tectorum (cheat grass)) (Allen et al, 2011). Use of prescribed fire as a management practice has emerged as a tool to control fuel loads (McIver et al, 2010); the NWRC has undertaken a prescribed fire management program in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The NWRC selects sites, conducts experiments and monitors and evaluates fire effects, whereas the BLM assists in site selection and conducts the fires.…”

Woodland expansion’s influence on belowground carbon and nitrogen in the Great Basin U.S.

“…The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) was designed to determine the effects of woodland expansion and management level fuel reduction treatments on Sagebrush steppe ecosystems (McIver et al, 2010;www.sagestep.org). Taken together, the 13 woodland sites in the study span a geographic range of more than 800 km moving from northeast to southwest across Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah U.S.A.…”