Patch-burn grazing management, vegetation heterogeneity, and avian responses in a semi-arid grassland

Abstract

Anthropogenic changes to disturbance regimes in grasslands, and associated homogenization of vegetation structure, have been implicated as factors contributing to declines in populations of grassland birds in North America. We examined the influence of patch-burn grazing management, which employs spatiotemporal interactions between fire and livestock grazing guided by historical disturbance patterns, on vegetation structure and bird abundance in shortgrass steppe in northeastern Colorado, USA. All study pastures were grazed by cattle at moderate stocking rates from May to October each year. In the patch-burn treatment, we burned 25% of each pasture in autumn (Oct or Nov) each year during 2007–2010; control pastures were not burned. Patch-burn grazing management increased vegetation heterogeneity by generating short (<4 cm), sparse vegetation on recent burns. Although cattle selectively grazed recent burns, this did not alter vegetation structure in unburned portions of patch-burned pastures relative to controls. Of the 6 grassland bird species we examined, mountain plovers (Charadrius montanus) occurred exclusively on recent burns, whereas grasshopper sparrows (Ammodramus savannarum) occurred exclusively in grassland not burned for ≥3 years. Two species (lark bunting [Calamospiza melanocorys] and western meadowlark [Sturnella neglecta]) were 2–3 times less abundant on recent burns compared to controls, whereas densities of horned larks (Eremophila alpestris) and McCown's longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii) were unaffected by burning. Lark bunting, western meadowlark, and grasshopper sparrow densities varied substantially among years. In the years when they were abundant, all 3 species increased in density across the time-since-burning gradient. Consistent with this pattern, patch-burn grazing management reduced the abundance of all 3 species at the whole-pasture scale. We found no evidence that unburned patches within the patch-burned pastures differed from unburned pastures in terms of the abundance of any bird species. Patch-burn grazing management was an effective strategy to create breeding habitat for mountain plovers. However, our findings suggest that in the shortgrass steppe, additional strategies that generate taller, more dense vegetation than occurs under moderate cattle grazing need to be considered in combination with patch-burn grazing management to sustain breeding habitat for the full suite of native grassland birds. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.