Rangeland Science Research Articles

Trojan Horse on the Great Plains: Landowner Thresholds, Coping Capacity, and Management of Kentucky Bluegrass

Kentucky bluegrass, an invasive cool-season grass in the US northern Great Plains, embodies the Greek story of the Trojan horse in which an apparent gift initially seems to bestow benefits but ultimately becomes harmful and subversive.Its competitive nature and early spring growth give it an advantage over native cool season grasses. This early and prolific growth provides forage for livestock but eventually leads to a decrease in other plant species and to negative impacts to multiple ecosystem services. Developing effective landscape-scale management techniques for invasives like Kentucky bluegrass depends on understanding the perceptions, coping capacity, and management abilities of private landowners. Through a mail survey conducted in North Dakota, this research provides insight into the cognitive processes that motivate agricultural landowners to manage Kentucky bluegrass and investigates psychological factors that constrain or enable the implementation of management behaviors. The results showed that less than half of the landowners surveyed had a management goal for Kentucky bluegrass, and among those with such goals, the perceived capacity to cope with the species was moderate to low. The majority of landowners who wanted to decrease the abundance of Kentucky bluegrass on their rangelands did not believe they could effectively do so. This highlights the need for the rangeland science and extension community to develop effective and feasible management techniques and conservation programs that integrate research findings to provide viable solutions. Participatory processes that include diverse interested and affected parties and rights holders can provide social learning environments conducive to the joint exploration of problems and refinement of actionable solutions. Through the focus on Kentucky bluegrass in the northern Great Plains, our research approach and recommendations also provide transferable insights for invasive species management and conservation in other social-ecological systems.

The Declining Ogallala Aquifer and the Future Role of Rangeland Science on the North American High Plains

The Ogallala Aquifer region, located in the Great Plains of the central United States, is the largest freshwater aquifer in North America, supporting one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world. In this paper, we discuss the history of settlement and water use in this region, from the Homestead Act and the Dust Bowl to modern irrigation systems. While many improvements to irrigation technology and water-efficient crops have helped to prolong the life of the Ogallala, continued use of this finite resource is leading to a tragedy of the commons, wherein difficult land management decisions will have to be made by this century's end. We posit that the art and science of rangeland management stands uniquely poised to tackle this challenge directly through creative integration, where appropriate, of native rangeland restoration, improved pasture management, integrated crop-livestock systems, and regenerative agricultural practices aimed at preserving soil and rangeland health, thereby providing continuity in the ability of the Ogallala region to continue to provide food, fiber, and other ecosystem services both locally and globally. Furthermore, we provide discussion on future research, extension, and educational needs to consider as the exploration for adaptive solutions are developed and evaluated in the coming decades.

The future of social science integration in rangelands research

• Researchers have studied human dimensions of rangelands since the earliest days of US rangeland science, usually focusing only on white, male, English-speaking ranch owners. • To address questions of rural prosperity and collaborative management, social scientists and the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network must turn their attention to the perspectives, practices, and experiences of indigenous, non-Anglo, female, and “new rural” rangeland stakeholders as well. • Social science researchers can learn from scholars in related fields whose work is less often consulted in rangeland science, including those working internationally with pastoral communities and in the United States with rural youth. • Understanding these communities is likely to require broadening our conceptions of what constitutes “knowledge,” with a greater focus on seeking just outcomes for the full range of people who depend upon rangelands and rangeland communities for their lives and livelihoods.

Grand challenges and transformative solutions for rangeland social-ecological systems – emphasizing the human dimensions

• Rangeland food systems around the world are increasingly facing complex and wicked problems with changing climate, environmental, and socio-economic conditions. We must find socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable ways to optimize production of high-quality, accessible food to feed the world's growing population. Further, we need to do this in the face of multiple threats, including climate change, land-use change, and emerging invasive species, pests, and diseases. • The “human dimensions” are central to solving critical challenges for working rangelands. We must actively build collaborative partnerships that span disciplines, knowledge areas, and backgrounds. Diverse perspectives as well as greater integration of the natural and social sciences will foster critically needed transformative rangeland science, learning, and management. • A central component of transformative change is training the next generation of scientists, resource users, land managers, and policymakers to work beyond institutional, land ownership, and political boundaries to build broad-scale partnerships and solutions.

Embracing complexity and humility in rangeland science

• More often than not, there is untapped potential for win-wins between livestock production and conservation. On the other hand, it is impossible to achieve every objective everywhere, all the time. Sometimes the tradeoffs are real. • We need to spend less time searching for general rules and more time embracing the complexity and context-dependence within rangeland science. • Rather than writing off findings that do not fit our current worldview, we should challenge ourselves to broaden our views in ways that reconcile multiple findings or multiple truths. It is possible we are all partly or mostly right, and we just need to figure out why, how, and in what contexts. • There is value in doing research in a way that focuses on really listening to and respecting multiple perspectives so that the results we produce not only qualify as facts, but also as truths that many people can buy into and get behind.

FeatherFlame: An Arduino-Based Thermocouple Datalogging System to Record Wildland Fire Flame Temperatures in Agris

Rangeland scientists have long relied on thermocouples for measuring temperature, especially in agris—in the field, under the extreme conditions of wildland fire. But the electronics required to sense and record thermocouple data remain expensive to both purchase and protect from exposure to heat and flames. Open-source, do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics platforms such as Arduino are increasingly popular among ecologists, and have been shown to perform as well as proprietary commercial systems when recording thermocouple data. The FeatherFlame system is a reliable, low-cost solution to sampling wildland fire, ranging from US$240–490 for 1–6 thermocouple sensors, including all fire protection equipment. The low cost and multi-sensor capacity facilitates spatial replication, which allows fire ecologists to measure and report meaningful data on rate of spread and calculate fire intensity.

Knowledge co‐production with traditional herders on cattle grazing behaviour for better management of species‐rich grasslands

Abstract The research gap between rangeland/livestock science and conservation biology/vegetation ecology has led to a lack of evidence needed for grazing‐related conservation management. Connecting scientific understanding with traditional ecological knowledge of local livestock keepers could help bridge this research and knowledge gap. We studied the grazing behaviour (plant selection and avoidance) of beef cattle (c. 33,000 bites) on species‐rich lowland pastures in Central Europe and traditional herding practices. We also did >450 outdoor interviews with traditional herders about livestock behaviour, herders' decisions to modify grazing behaviour and effects of modified grazing on pasture vegetation. We found that cattle grazing on species‐rich pastures displayed at least 10 different behavioural elements as they encountered 117 forage species from highly desired to rejected. The small discrimination error suggests that cattle recognize all listed plants ‘by species’. We also found that herders had broad knowledge of grazing desire and they consciously aimed to modify desire by slowing, stopping or redirecting the herd. Modifications were aimed at increasing grazing intensity in less‐desired patches and decreasing grazing selectivity in heterogenous swards. Synthesis and applications. The traditional herd management practices presented here have significant conservation benefits, such as avoiding under‐ and overgrazing, and targeted removal of pasture weeds, litter and encroaching bushes, tall competitive plants and invasive species. We argue that knowledge co‐production with traditional herders who belong to another knowledge system could help connect isolated scientific disciplines especially if ecologists and rangeland scientists work closely with traditional herders, co‐designing research projects and working together in data collection, analysis and interpretation. Stronger links between these disciplines could help develop evidence‐based, specific conservation management practices while herders could contribute with their practical experiences and with real‐world testing of new management techniques.

Advancing Fire Ecology in 21st Century Rangelands

Fire ecology has a long history of empirical investigation in rangelands. However, the science is inconclusive and incomplete, sparking increasing interest on how to advance the discipline. Here, we introduce a new framework for qualitatively and quantitatively understanding the ranges of variability in fire regimes typical of experimental investigations in rangeland fire science compared with the range of conditions that actually occurred during contemporary social-ecological times. We implement this framework for one of rangelands’ most pyrogenic systems—the Great Plains of North America. We identify four social-ecological fire eras that have epitomized people’s relationship with wildland fire in the Great Plains since the last glacial maxima. These cultural fire eras include the now-extinct coexistence era (indigenous fire use), the suppression era (extermination of wildland fire occurrence), the shadow era (localized prescribed burning groups), and the emerging wildfire era (resulting from wildland fire management failures, continued decoupling of human-fire ignitions, and global change). Our synthesis demonstrates that experimental fire conditions have not explored the types and ranges of variation in fire regime components responsible for shaping rangeland vegetation—now, in the past, or into the future. Instead, scientific investigations have focused largely on controlling and minimizing sources of uncertainty and experimental variation, essentially eliminating ranges of variation that underpin the functioning of fire in modern social-ecological systems. Yet a series of scientific investigations exist that targeted a wider range of variability in fire regime components, leading to major advancements and the rejection of a number of long-standing rules of thumb in rangeland science and management. These include 1) the manipulation of fire return interval, 2) the pyric herbivory experiments, and 3) the extreme fire trials. We discuss the general philosophy shared among these studies, introduce scientific standards needed to avoid common pitfalls, and highlight opportunities to better understand how rangeland pattern and process correspond to critical ranges of variation in the human-fire relationship.

Conversation as an Education Medium for the Age of Distraction - the ‘Art of Range’ Podcast

On the Ground • The Art of Range is an educational podcast designed for rangeland practitioners, including ranchers, rangeland professionals, and researchers. Rangeland management is both art and science; the practice of any art depends on mastery of science, a body of knowledge. Rangeland science, as a truly integrative discipline that encompasses soils, plants, animals, people, and economics, invites lifelong learning and cross-cultural learning. • True education is a science of relations; this requires communicating with depth and breadth. The structure of modern life in the developed world promotes thin communication, continuous partial attention, and personal and ideological isolation even as moderns are hyper-connected through digital communication devices. A conversational podcast permits deeper exploration of important topics and promotes synthesis and application to one’s own physical and cultural context. • The Art of Range podcast in 2019 explored a variety of specific topics, such as rangeland management fundamentals, ecosystem monitoring, targeted grazing, managing rangelands for resiliency to climate uncertainty and risk, and understanding and valuing ecosystem goods and services.

Australian rangelands science – a strategic national asset

Producing, processing and distributing food is the biggest thing that humans do on the planet. In aggregate terms, agriculture has been very successful in ensuring that global food production has more than kept pace with global population growth over recent decades. However, in recent years concerns have intensified about the quality, equity, sustainability and resilience of the food system. Only around one-third of all people on Earth are eating a healthy diet. The food system is the biggest user and polluter of land and water, the biggest driver of habitat and biodiversity loss, and on track to be the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. The recent emergence of a novel coronavirus and the resultant COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the systemic risks to human health from current food production and distribution systems. How to produce more, healthier and safer food, much more efficiently and sustainably, in more difficult climates, and how to share it more equitably, is an existential challenge for humanity. Australian science, and rangeland science in particular, is well-placed to play a leadership role across the Indo-Pacific in this endeavour. The Australian innovation system in agriculture and natural resource management has long had to contend with highly variable climates and extreme weather events, to produce competitive products for global markets with minimal subsidies. The know-how, and associated policies and institutions developed in doing so, are a strategic national asset and an important element of Australian soft power in our region.

Index to Titles and Authors/Editors of Books Reviewed

Index to Titles and Authors/Editors of Books Reviewed

The landscape of North American Rangeland Social Science: A Systematic Map

Rangeland scientists have made substantial progress in understanding ecological dynamics of rangelands, but the social factors have received less attention in North America. A body of North American rangeland social science has developed over the past 4 decades, with the number of studies increasing each decade. However, these works have not been systematically reviewed to assess the state of rangeland social science in North America or to identify research gaps. We developed a systematic map to characterize this literature by 1) the research objectives and questions; 2) who was studied; 3) where research was conducted; 4) which theories, methodologies, and methods were applied; and 5) how these research characteristics have changed from 1970 to 2017. We found that most (81%) North American rangeland social science has studied ranchers, farmers, and/or landowners, with limited consideration of other stakeholders (e.g., ranch workers, youth). Although age (43% of the studies) and education (40%) are often considered, other attributes/identities, such as gender (28%) and race or ethnicity (18%), are less frequently included. The most commonly used research method is surveys (52%), and much of rangeland social science does not make explicit connections to either specific methodological or theoretical frameworks. The limited application of theories, methodologies, and a lack of diverse methods has potentially constrained who and what have been studied in North America. The limited consideration of gender and race in rangeland social science is echoed in the limited number of studies that have accounted for the effects of social identities and power relationships on people’s connection to and management of rangelands. This review highlights the need for more North American research that 1) is informed by social theory, 2) applies a diversity of methods, 3) considers a broader diversity of stakeholders, and 4) draws from multiple social science disciplinary traditions.

Perspectives on the concept of rangeland carrying capacity, and their exploration by means of Noy-Meir's two-function model

Carrying capacity is a fundamental concept in rangeland science and management; however, it is difficult to define, not least because it can be viewed from varied perspectives. With a view to facilitating debate, six perspectives (or definitions) of carrying capacity were formulated, representing: resource productivity; animal production; the system; animal welfare; the environment; and profit. To explore their implications semiquantitatively, Noy-Meir's simple, two-function model of a grazing system was used to simulate the annual herbage production cycle, during which a specified animal population density would be present year-round, except during an early-season grazing deferment of specified duration. The model was extended to calculate a metric for each definition of carrying capacity and then implemented for various combinations of the two key grazing-management-determined parameters: animal density and deferment duration. The metrics were mapped as a series of response surfaces. In general, grazing deferment at the start of the growth season can compensate for an increase in animal density. In other words, carrying capacity is, for most definitions, a contour line on a response surface; it divides the total space into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” regions of grazing-management practice. The contour lines that characterize the various carrying-capacity definitions can then be superimposed to examine the degree of overlap between “acceptable” regions. Two common rules-of-thumb for determining carrying capacity are examined by using this approach. The term “carrying capacity” is vague because it can address various concerns, but some of the most important concerns can be defined in reasonably precise terms and translated into quantitative metrics, based on the fundamental states and rates of a grazing system. Such an approach could facilitate dialogue among those concerned with the continuous refinement of carrying-capacity recommendations.

Index to Titles and Authors/Editors of Books Reviewed

Index to Titles and Authors/Editors of Books Reviewed

Optimising cattle grazing distribution on rangeland: a systematic review and network analysis

Optimising beef cattle (Bos taurus and Bos indicus) distribution, both spatially and temporally, is one of the most significant challenges associated with managing extensive grazed rangelands. Landscape variability and behavioural patterns of cattle may lead to non-uniform and inefficient forage utilisation, damage to critical habitats, and water quality impairment. In order to overcome these distribution challenges, a large suite of tools have been developed and researched to optimise grazing patterns. The objectives of this synthesis paper are 2-fold: (i) to survey and categorise distribution tools; and (ii) to analyse the connectivity of existing research across academic disciplines to identify and isolate knowledge gaps. A systematic literature review revealed specific types of tools and strategies to improve cattle distribution, which were categorised as either ‘animal’ or ‘environmental manipulations’. Animal manipulations utilise aspects of individual behaviour and herd dynamics to alter grazing patterns, whereas environmental manipulations involve transforming aspects of the animal’s surroundings to overcome challenges associated with inefficient distribution. This review reveals that strategies are overwhelmingly studied in isolation, and that there is potential to increase efficacy by integrating multiple strategies to achieve a desired outcome. Motivated by these findings, an author collaboration network analysis was conducted to investigate connectivity within and among author fields of expertise to understand why more integrated management strategies are not currently studied. Authors were classified into five fields of research: animal behaviour science, animal production science, biophysical rangeland science, economics, and other. The network analysis revealed that communities of authors contributing to papers on enhancing cattle distribution are disjointed. These results suggest that in order to fulfil knowledge gaps about the efficacy and cost of management strategies, there needs to be interdisciplinary engagement with particular attention to strategies that integrate animal and environmental manipulations to enhance cattle grazing distribution on extensively grazed landscapes.

Early Warnings for State Transitions

New concepts have emerged in theoretical ecology with the intent to quantify complexities in ecological change that are unaccounted for in state-and-transition models and to provide applied ecologists with statistical early warning metrics able to predict and prevent state transitions. With its rich history of furthering ecological theory and its robust and broad-scale monitoring frameworks, the rangeland discipline is poised to empirically assess these newly proposed ideas while also serving as early adopters of novel statistical metrics that provide advanced warning of a pending shift to an alternative ecological regime. We review multivariate early warning and regime shift detection metrics, identify situations where various metrics will be most useful for rangeland science, and then highlight known shortcomings. Our review of a suite of multivariate-based regime shift/early warning indicators provides a broad range of metrics applicable to a wide variety of data types or contexts, from situations where a great deal is known about the key system drivers and a regime shift is hypothesized a priori, to situations where the key drivers and the possibility of a regime shift are both unknown. These metrics can be used to answer ecological state-and-transition questions, inform policymakers, and provide quantitative decision-making tools for managers.

The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science. By Nathan F. Sayre. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. xv + 265 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $120.00, paper $40.00, e-book $40.00.

<i>The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science</i>. By Nathan F. Sayre. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. xv + 265 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $120.00, paper $40.00, e-book $40.00.

Global assessment of the non-equilibrium theory of rangelands: Revisited and refined

We re-investigate evidence for the non-equilibrium concept for rangelands using a georeferenced data base of N=83 studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Following up on a previous study by von Wehrden et al. (2012), we use their global map of rainfall variability and their method to distinguish between three different types of degradation depending on the presence or absence of water sources or key resources in the studied areas. Addressing recent discussions in the rangeland science community, we include the distinction between commercial or subsistence use as parameter in our data base. We find that zonal degradation, i.e. degradation with no presence of water or key resources, is predominantly reported for locations with a precipitation coefficient of variation below the threshold of 33%, as proposed by the non-equilibrium concept. We do not find any statistical evidence for a systematic difference between commercial and subsistence farming in terms of degradation incidence.

MODELLING CARRYING CAPACITY FOR THE THANDA PRIVATE GAME RESERVE, SOUTH AFRICA USING LANDSAT 8 MULTISPECTRAL DATA

Abstract. Rangelands which consist of grasslands, shrublands and savannahs are used by wildlife for habitat and are the main source of forage for livestock. The assessment and monitoring of rangeland condition is one of the most important factors for rangeland scientists in order to calculate the carrying capacity of livestock with consideration for coexisting wildlife. This study assessed the potential of Landsat 8 multispectral bands and broadband vegetation indices to model woody vegetation parameters such as tree equivalents (TE) and total leaf mass (LMASS) for the Thanda Private Game Reserve using partial least squares regression (PLSR). The PLSR model predicted TE with an R2 value of 0.76 and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1411 TE/ha using an independent test dataset. LMASS was predicted with an R2 value of 0.67 and a RMSE of 853 kg/ha on an independent test dataset. The predictive models were then inverted to map TE and LMASS over the study area. The modelled TE and LMASS layers were integrated with conventional grazing and browse capacity models to map carrying capacity for the Game Reserve. The study indicates the potential of Landsat 8 multispectral data in carrying capacity modelling. The result is significant for rangeland monitoring in Southern Africa using remote sensing technologies.

Climate Change and Cultural Heritage in Western Mongolia

This report addresses the impact of climate change on cultural production among Kazakh mobile pastoral herders in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia. It highlights the body of ecological knowledge that herders carry from generation to generation and express in their music, instruments, textiles, and heritage actions such as work patterns and social gatherings. Extreme weather events, loss of water sources, and desertification have deeply impacted herders and this is expressed in their cultural forms. The study engages with rangeland and climate science and draws on the author’s fieldwork with Kazakh herders in Mongolia.