Conservation policy often incentivizes managers of human-impacted areas to create landscape heterogeneity to maximize biodiversity. In rangeland, patchy disturbance regimes create landscape heterogeneity (patch contrast), but outcomes of heterogeneity-based management are rarely tested for a universal response. We analyzed four habitat variables – vegetation structure, plant functional group co...

The most important decision for successful range management is setting a proper stocking rate. The stocking rate affects rangeland health and productivity, livestock production, and economic returns. Because of its importance, much rangeland research has focused on answering the question, "what is the proper stocking rate?" However, like many important questions in life, it is not easily answer...

We conducted Weld experiments to test the hypothesis that regulation of herbivorous pests in urban landscapes can be enhanced with forbs that provide Xoral resources for adult natural enemies. The herbivore was bagworm, Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis (Haworth) (Lepidoptera: Psychidae), which is attacked by a guild of hymenopterous parasitoids. We established host shrubs in common garden planting...

Rangeland researchers are increasingly interested in understanding working rangelands as integrated social-ecological systems and in investigating the contexts of human decision-making processes that support system resilience. U.S. public lands ranchers are key partners in rangeland conservation, but the role of women in building system resilience has not yet been explored. We conducted life-hi...

This paper uses a new ecological-economic approach to analyze the role of time in range management in a dynamic and stochastic setting. We first construct a theoretical model of a parcel of rangeland in which time restrictions are used to manage the land. We then show how the dynamic and the stochastic properties of this rangeland can be used to construct two managerial objectives that are ecol...

The timing of application for the management of rangeland grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae) is critical, especially as insecticides become more specialized and the use of Insect Growth Regulators becomes more widespread. The general seasonal occurrence of adults of many grasshopper species has been well documented; however, their appearance varies widely between years. We analyzed sweep samp...