0006-3207/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.03.001 * Corresponding author. Tel.:+ 01 510 642 7304; fa E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J berkeley.edu (S.L. Stephens). Fuel reduction in the wildland–urban interface is a widely used international strategy for assisting human communities regarding wildfire threats, but very little research has examined ...

To assess the potential for enhancing an existing stand of native perennial grasses on a California Coast Range Grassland site, we experimentally manipulated the seasonal timing and presence of grazing for 3 years (1994 through 1996) and of autumn burning for 2 years (1994 and 1995) and measured species cover for 6 years (1993 through 1998). We subjected the species matrix to classification (TW...

Seedlings of five native tussock species grown in the glasshouse on mountain subsoil showed outstanding responses to nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser in combination. The most vigorous species was silver mssock but this produced less dry matter than an introduced grass, Yorkshire fog, grown on the same soil. Tussocks in general responded positively to applications of magnesium and potassium bu...

Rare and common plants are predicted to host different rhizospheric microbes. To evaluate this prediction, we used terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis to compare rhizospheric bacteria from eight native grass species whose local abundances in their natural ecosystem spanned a 15-fold range. We observed that locally rare versus common plants are associated with div...

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is the most important cultivated pasture grass in the USA, occupying over 35 million acres. It is a native of Europe but is of minor importance there. It is not known when tall fescue was first introduced into the USA but it was being tested in several states by the late 1800s (Buckner et al., 1979). However, tall fescue usage remained low until release of the ...

The tropical tanner grass, Urochloa arrecta, is one of the worst aquatic plant invaders in Brazilian freshwater ecosystems. This study aimed to compare beds macrophytes dominated and without U. arrecta Guaraguaçu River, a subtropical tidal river South Brazil, analyze effects that this invasive grass has on biodiversity native at two spatial scales. We compared macrophyte by without, considering...

Pathogens are common and diverse in natural communities and have been implicated in the success of host invasions. Yet few studies have experimentally measured how pathogens impact native versus exotic hosts, particularly when individual hosts are simultaneously coinfected by diverse pathogens. To estimate effects of interactions among multiple pathogens within host individuals on both transmis...

Changes in climate and land use that interact synergistically to increase fire frequencies and intensities in tropical regions are predicted to drive forests to new grass-dominated stable states. To reveal the mechanisms for such a transition, we established 50 ha plots in a transitional forest in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon to different fire treatments (unburned, burned annually (B1yr) o...

Modification of habitat structure due to invasive plants can alter the risk landscape for wildlife by, for example, changing the quality or availability of refuge habitat. Whether perceived risk corresponds with actual fitness outcomes, however, remains an important open question. We simultaneously measured how habitat changes due to a common invasive grass (cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum) affecte...

From the perspective of grassland resources and their sustainable utilization, this paper expounds type characteristics utilization status in Ili River Valley, analyzes main problems re-sources such as annual increase degradation area, increasingly serious soil erosion, imbalance between seasons years production, imperfect mechanism ecological protection, restoration management. This discusses ...